After the War Is Over (11 page)

“Yes, please. Would you like me to show you the yew walk?”

“I should love to see it. While we’re walking, I thought we might discuss Linnaeus’s
botanical classifications. Have you studied them before? No? Then we might as well
begin.”

Cumbria, England

June 1919

R
ather to Charlotte’s surprise, the remainder of the wedding reception passed in a
pleasant blur, and when it came time to bid farewell to the bride and groom, she,
and all the remaining guests save Lady Cumberland and her coterie, stood on the front
steps and shouted their good-byes.

Edward was surrounded by other wedding guests, so she wasn’t able to say good-bye
properly, but she did wave at him and smile encouragingly. Perhaps she would write
to him in a week or two, just to see how he was feeling. It was the sort of thing
she, as his friend, ought to do.

As soon as she and the other guests arrived back at the Haverthwaite Arms, Charlotte
went in search of its proprietor, Mr. Poole. She found him behind the long bar in
the dining room, his usual haunt during opening hours. Not only was the Arms the village’s
only inn, but it was also its sole public house.

“Good afternoon, Miss Brown. How was the wedding breakfast?”

“It was lovely. I wonder if I might ask a favor of you.”

“Ask away.”

“I’m hoping to catch a train to Preston this afternoon. Might one of your sons be
available to drive me to the station?”

“Of course, Miss Brown. No trouble at all. Give me a quarter hour to have David hitch
up old Barney and you’ll be set.”

At this time of day the trains to Preston were infrequent, but there would be one
within the hour, at the very least. She changed out of her linen gown and put on her
dark brown skirt and coat, packed away her things, checked her handbag for her purse
and return ticket, and went downstairs.

It was a good forty minutes, via bumpy back lanes and byways, to the station in Penrith,
and when she arrived it was only to discover that the express train had left a quarter
hour before. There was a local run set to arrive in a half hour, however, which would
arrive in Preston at nine o’clock. According to the stationmaster, that would leave
her with ample time to catch one of the evening services to Liverpool’s Central station.

All that afternoon and evening, first on the train to Preston, then on the shorter
run down to Liverpool, Charlotte wrote. Her conversation with Edward had been full
of revelations, not least of them his admitted ignorance of the true face of poverty
in Britain. If a man as educated as Edward had no notion of the extent and depth of
poverty across the land, it stood to reason that many others had no idea of how badly
their fellow citizens—their neighbors—were suffering.

She had two sheets of notepaper in her valise, and when she’d covered them front and
back with her small, fine script, she scrabbled through her bag and found a crumpled
bookshop receipt, as well as the minutes from the February meeting of the Pensions
Committee. When these were exhausted she
set down her pencil, folded her notes away, and committed the remainder of her thoughts
to memory.

Her train rolled into Liverpool at a quarter past eleven, so late that the trams were
finished for the evening and a sensible young woman would not even consider walking
home alone. So she resigned herself to the expense of a motor taxi and was back at
the Misses Macleods’ within the half hour.

Everyone was asleep, even Janie, but Charlotte would not sleep until she was finished.
There was too much to say, to explain.

“Enlighten me,” Edward had said. And so she would. Not him, not directly, but as many
people as she could reach. She took out her notes, copied them out afresh, and worked
until dawn was breaking. Until she was satisfied with the arguments she had made and
the story she had told.

She would sleep for a few hours, go to church, have Sunday lunch with her friends
and the Misses Macleod, and tell them about the wedding. It looked to be a fine day,
so she might even walk over to Princes Park and buy a lemon ice from one of the Italians
with their pushcarts.

In such a fashion she would muddle through what was left of Sunday and then, on Monday
morning, on the way to work, she would stop by the offices of the
Liverpool Herald
on Victoria Street and leave an envelope for the newspaper’s editor in chief, John
Ellis. He might choose not to hear her. He might simply toss her letter in the rubbish.
But for now, for this morning, it was the best she could do.

O
N
M
ONDAY AFTERNOON
a local letter, postmarked that morning, arrived at Charlotte’s desk.

           
16 June 1919

           
Dear Miss Brown,

                
Thank you for your letter and submission, which I read with some interest. While the
piece you enclosed is not suitable for publication in its present form, I should like
to discuss it with you further, perhaps after you have finished work for the day.
I keep late hours, so you are welcome to come whenever you like. No need to ring ahead.

Yours faithfully,

John Ellis

He hadn’t said no. He had said he would speak to her. All things considered, it was
an excellent start.

At half past six, long after everyone else had gone home, even Miss Rathbone, she
judged that the hour had arrived for her visit to Mr. Ellis. Her arguments were fresh
in her mind as well as his, and his office would probably be quiet at this time of
day.

She knew little of John Ellis, apart from the fact that Miss Rathbone approved of
his politics and thought highly of him. He’d been at his post for less than a year,
having taken over from the newspaper’s longtime editor in chief just before the Armistice,
and in that time had made few changes to the
Herald
. It was one of two evening papers in the city, both of them poor cousins compared
to the
Daily Post,
and its editorial content was not particularly engaging. Not yet, at any rate.

The
Herald
was housed in a large but ramshackle building on
Victoria Street. A row of delivery lorries was parked outside, already returned for
the night, and placards with the evening’s headlines were affixed to the brick-and-limestone
façade.

Although the reception desk inside the front doors was empty, the ground floor was
far from deserted. A young man brushed past Charlotte, a stack of reference books
in his arms, and began to climb a set of stairs at the far end of the entrance hall.

“Excuse me,” she called to him. “I’m here to see Mr. Ellis. Where might I find him?”

“Up the stairs, third floor, straight down the hall,” he answered, not missing a beat
as he bounded up the steps. “His office is dead ahead. If he’s not there you’ll find
him out on the floor.”

Mr. Ellis’s office, a rather small affair given his position, was indeed empty. She
turned about and retraced her steps, wishing she had asked the boy what he meant by
“the floor.” A few yards along was a set of wide double doors; peering through, she
spied a high-ceilinged room, made bright by the setting sun, its space punctuated
by large communal desks. At a round table in the center of the room a group of men
was gathered, their heads bent over a newspaper that lay open for their inspection.

Charlotte approached cautiously, not wishing to disturb them. One of the men, younger
than the rest, was talking, and as he spoke he wrote on the newspaper, underlining
and circling, until there was more red than ink upon the pages. He had thick spectacles,
pushed high into his sandy hair, and wore an expression of quiet intensity. If he
was not John Ellis she would be most surprised.

She took another few steps forward, waiting for an opportune
pause, until she was only a few yards away. The man she took to be Mr. Ellis looked
up, frowning at the interruption, and then realization dawned.

“Miss Brown?”

“It is.”

“John Ellis. I’m almost done here. Would you mind waiting for me in my office? I’ll
be along as quick as I can.”

“Of course.”

“Shall I bring you a cup of tea?” he offered, smiling broadly.

“Yes, thank you,” she answered, although she’d have preferred a glass of sherry.

She had time to look around his office, which was indeed quite small, and furthermore
was exceedingly untidy. She could scarcely see the top of his desk, piled as it was
with editions of nearly every newspaper she’d ever read, and a good many whose titles
were unfamiliar: the
Sydney Morning Herald
, the
South China Morning Post
, the
Chicago Tribune.
On the floor were stacks and stacks of magazines, academic journals, and yet more
newspapers, many of them yellow and curling at the edges.

In little more than five minutes he joined her, shouldering his way through the door,
a pair of mugs in his hands.

“Sorry about that. I’d have been here sooner, but I was set on finding us some biscuits.
Usually there’s a tin of them hanging about, but tonight our larders are bare.”

“That’s quite all right.”

“My colleagues here are like vultures. Will strip a carcass bare in seconds.” He handed
her one of the mugs. “I didn’t think to ask how you like it, so I added milk and sugar.”

“Perfect,” she fibbed, although she detested sweet tea.

“So. Your article.”

“Yes. You said you didn’t think it suitable at present—”

“I thought it was magnificent. Exactly the sort of thing I should like to see in this
newspaper. The difficulty is space.”

“I see,” she said, though in truth she didn’t. Was it not in his purview to decide
what would appear in his paper?

“I have four pages a day, six days a week. Between advertisements, classifieds, sporting
news, and all the trivia my publisher expects me to include, I have only one or two
columns a day to work with. When you stop to consider everything that has been going
on this year, you can imagine how difficult it is for me to find room for everything.
Remember the rioting that took place last month here and in most of the other port
cities? I only had room for forty inches of coverage, which barely scratched the surface.
Were racial prejudices the main reason that the riots broke out? Did the rioters think
of their actions as political? Or was it disaffection, plain and simple, with a dose
of vandalism thrown in for good measure? With only forty inches to spare a day, I
fear I was unable to do justice to the subject.”

“I hadn’t realized—”

“I only wish I could run your article in its entirety, but you must agree that it
is long.”

“It is, but—”

“May I propose, instead, that we run a series of short pieces in the
Herald
? Would once a week be too much trouble? You’ve enough material here to keep you going
for several months.”

“Are you offering me a position as a columnist in your paper, Mr. Ellis?”

“I suppose I am, after a fashion. But I can only give you twenty-five inches. Thirty
at the most.”

“I’ve no idea what that means.”

“I beg your pardon. Column inches. I suppose about six hundred words or so. Seven
hundred and fifty at the outside. Can you manage with that?”

“I don’t know what to say. To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t expected that you would
be interested.”

“I receive no end of rubbish in the post, Miss Brown, but what you’ve written is an
exception. Only a fool would ignore what you have to say.”

She wasn’t certain how to respond to this surprisingly pleasant man. How on earth
had he risen to such a position while remaining in possession of such a congenial
temperament? He might be a brute away from the office, though. He might browbeat his
wife and kick his dog and treat the men and women who worked for him as little more
than galley slaves. Possible, though unlikely.

“I’ve made some notes on the pages you sent me. I’d like to see you start with the
Jones family. You’ll tell their story in your first article, and in your second you
will propose a solution to their troubles. You have, if you’ll forgive me, a tendency
toward language that is a trifle too florid.”

“A lamentable failing of mine,” she said, smiling in spite of his criticism.

“You’ll see from my notes that I have a particular aversion to adverbs. Never use
five words when one will do, Miss Brown. And never let fanciful language get in the
way of the story you want to tell. Plain and simple is best.”

“I understand. When should I return this to you?”

“Shall we say Monday? With a view to getting it into the paper for Tuesday?”

“Monday it is, then.”

“You haven’t asked how much I’ll pay you.”

“But I don’t wish to be paid. That wasn’t my intent at all.”

“I’ll stop you there. Always insist on being paid. Know your own worth, Miss Brown.
People won’t respect you if you don’t. Give it to charity if you like, though if I
were you I’d put it aside for a darker day. We both know what happens to people who’ve
nothing to cushion them when disaster strikes.”

“You do have a point,” she agreed.

“Of course I do. As you get to know me, Miss Brown, you’ll discover I’m almost always
right. I will pay you fifteen shillings a week, payable upon my acceptance of each
article. Now shake my hand, and off home you go. Shall I ring for a taxi?”

“No need, Mr. Ellis. It’s light still, and I’ve only a mile to go.”

“Very well. Good night, Miss Brown. And thank you. With your help I may yet turn this
newspaper into something worth the paper it’s printed on.”

A Land Fit for Heroes


                
In my work as a constituency assistant to one of Liverpool’s most respected politicians,
I daily encounter families in desperate need of assistance. They are good, decent,
and honest people. They have done nothing to deserve the hardships they suffer. They
are our neighbors in this great city. It is my conviction that they deserve better.


                
Recently I was introduced to a husband and wife whom I shall call, for the purposes
of this article, Mr. and Mrs. Jones. They have four children, the eldest of whom is
thirteen. A fifth child is expected shortly. Mr. Jones served in the infantry, in
a local regiment, for the entirety of the war. He was discharged from further service
in January of this year with a spotless service record.


                
Mr. Jones was wounded twice by shrapnel, both times returning to action soon after,
and was gassed in 1916. The effects of the phosgene have left him with a persistent
cough, shortness of breath, and chronic eye infections. Before the war he worked on
the grinding floor of a local brick factory,
but since his discharge he has been unable to resume work because the brick dust inflames
his damaged lungs.


                
For reasons only understandable to the officials responsible, Mr. Jones has been deemed
capable of a full return to work and denied a disability pension. Mrs. Jones, who
once helped to make ends meet by taking in piecework, is also unwell, and consequently
is unable to work.


                
Having exhausted what meager savings they once had, the Jones family was recently
evicted from their modest flat and are now living with Mrs. Jones’s elderly parents
in their very small court dwelling of four rooms. The entire family is malnourished,
Mrs. Jones most of all, as she regularly goes without in order to ensure her children
are fed. I fear such malnutrition may cause her to lose the child she is expecting.


                
The astonishing and disheartening truth is that the Jones family is among the more
fortunate of those I see in the course of my work. They have received modest amounts
of assistance from the Red Cross and local agencies, and this has preserved them from
utter penury. They have a roof over their heads. They are clothed, if but poorly,
and all but the youngest children have shoes. They are malnourished but they are not
starving. They have children who are coming of age to work and may soon help to improve
the family’s fortunes.


                
If the Jones family is to be counted among the fortunate, however relative the term,
allow me to pose the question: what of those with nothing? Untold hundreds, possibly
even thousands, of our fellow citizens are homeless. Many more thousands go hungry
every day. Many are starving.


                
Last year Mr. Lloyd George promised to make “Britain a fit country for heroes to live
in.” It was an admirable promise, but I believe it is one that he and his fellows
have failed to keep. I fear it may never be kept.


                
This is not a call to arms, but rather a call to action. Will the people of Liverpool,
of Merseyside, and of Britain respond? Will they help the Jones family and those like
them? Only by putting pressure on our government can we hope to effect meaningful
change and, in so doing, build a land that is truly fit for heroes.


                
I implore you now: write to your Member of Parliament. Write to the Prime Minister.
Write to His Majesty the King. Tell them of your concern. Ask them how they mean to
help those among us who suffer. Most importantly, share your concerns with your friends,
your family, and your neighbors.


                
The Great War may be over, but another war remains, here at home, and we are far from
certain of victory.


—the
Liverpool Herald,
24 June 1919

“S
O
, M
ISS
B
ROWN
. Tell me how it has been.”

“How has what been?”

“The reaction to your ‘call to action.’”

Mr. Ellis had telephoned her at work yesterday, the first she had heard from him since
her article had appeared in the
Herald
on Tuesday. He’d invited her to lunch on Saturday, when she was at her leisure and
he was less pressed for time than usual.

He’d asked her to meet him at the
Herald
and she’d agreed, assuming he might need to finish off some task or another and
didn’t wish her to wait upon him if he were late. She had assumed they would go to
Reece’s or Lyons’ or the restaurant inside Blackler’s department store.

To that end she had worn her Sunday best, had borrowed a hat from Meg, and had pinned
her gold and seed-pearl brooch, a gift from her parents last Christmas, to the lapel
of her coat. The Misses Macleod had said she looked very smart.

But he had not taken her out to lunch. Instead here she was, sitting across the desk
from Mr. Ellis, and they were eating sandwiches. Not especially good sandwiches either,
for the bread was rather stale and the filling, which she took to be tinned salmon,
was badly in need of some salt and pepper.

He had apologized, explaining that he was so behind in his work he couldn’t afford
to leave his desk for so much as an hour. Nor did he cease working after her arrival.
As they ate their sandwiches, washed down by sips of weak tea, he somehow managed
to edit an article while also carrying on their conversation. Not once did he fumble
for words or lose his train of thought, and whenever his eyes weren’t on the page
before him he looked her in the eye, the solemn intensity of his gaze filtered by
his spectacle lenses.

“Miss Rathbone was very pleased,” she told him. “Of course I had told her about it
in advance, mainly to ensure that she approved.”

“She wrote to me the next morning,” he said. “Receiving her seal of approval put a
spring in my step all day.”

“The rest of my colleagues seem to approve,” she added, not troubling to factor Miss
Margison into her estimation. Nothing she did would ever please that woman, who had
declared for all to hear that she, unlike some, would never
dream
of calling
such attention to herself. As long as Miss Rathbone was in accord with her journalistic
excursions, Charlotte would continue her work with a clear conscience, no matter what
anyone else had to say on the subject.

“And your friends?”

“I wasn’t able to show my dearest friend, for she’s away on her honeymoon. My friends
here were terribly excited, though.”

“Do you live with your parents?”

“No. They live in Somerset. I’ve a room in a ladies’ boardinghouse not far from here.
I lived there when I first came to Liverpool in 1911, and fortunately there was room
for me when I returned after the war.”

“Where did you go? During the war, that is.”

“To London. I trained as a nurse, and then I went to the Special Neurological Hospital
for Officers in Kensington. We treated neurasthenia patients there.”

“A thankless job, I’ll wager.”

“Thankless at times, but not unrewarding. Were you here during the war? I mean, ah,
did you . . . ?”

“I’ve a thick skin, Miss Brown. I wasn’t in uniform. These,” he said, tapping his
spectacles, “prevented it. I tried to join up, but they weren’t having it. So I spent
the duration behind a desk in this building.”

“Doing work that was every bit as worthy as—”

“You’re very kind. But there’s no need to jump to my defense. I wasn’t the only man
of fighting age left behind in Britain, after all. And the white feather brigade eventually
found other ways to pass their time.”

He said he had a thick skin, but it must have marked him. How could it not? Even she,
so uncertain over the need to go to war, so unsure of its justice, had felt compelled
to serve. She
decided that if she were ever to meet anyone who confessed to having handed out white
feathers, she would delightedly adorn them with a pillow’s worth plus a pail of hot
tar.

“What did your parents think of your having spoken out so publicly?”

“I wouldn’t say they were displeased, for privately they share my convictions. But
I think they were concerned I’ve exposed myself to public censure.” That was putting
it mildly, for Father and Mother were of a generation that deplored women in public
life, the late queen excepted, no matter how laudable their aims.

“There’s no getting around it, I’m afraid. Anyone who speaks out on such a subject
is bound to face criticism.”

“I did see some of the letters to the editor. The ones you ran yesterday.” She ought
not to have read them, but some perverse urge had propelled her to read every damning,
excoriating word.

“It was exactly the response I’d hoped for.”

“But they were so hateful,” she protested.

“And written by idiots, to the last man.”

“If you think so little of their—”

“I printed those letters for one reason only.”

“To represent both points of view?”

“God, no!” He laughed. “What do you take me for? I printed those cretinous letters
because it proves that people are listening. You, Miss Brown, are being
heard
.”

She grinned at him, her chagrin at the memory of those awful letters to the editor
beginning to melt away. Before it could vanish, however, she recalled other words,
far less charitable, but no less truthful.

You speak as if your every word is a pearl of wisdom bestowed by the Almighty,
Edward had told her. “Saint Charlotte,” he had called her. And it made her wonder:
Had she written the article in a sincere attempt to make the world a better place?
Or was it simply a self-centered attempt to draw attention to herself? She’d never
before had cause to doubt herself, but now . . .

Belatedly she realized that Mr. Ellis was waiting for her to respond. “It is a fine
feeling,” she said at last.

“Of course it is. And with every article you write for me, more and more people will
hear you.”

She glanced at her wristwatch; it was past one o’clock already. “I ought to leave
you to your work, Mr. Ellis.”

“I’m poor company at the best of times.”

“Not at all. But you need to work, and I need to finish off my article for next week.”
She stood, brushing sandwich crumbs off her skirt, and reached out to shake his hand.
“Are you here all day?”

“On Saturdays I stay until we put the day’s edition to bed. Then I go home.”

“So you don’t live in the attics upstairs?”

“Now there’s an idea,” he said, smiling ruefully. “No, I live with my mother.”

“What does she think of your working all hours like this?”

“She deplores it, just as you appear to do. Insists I’m working myself into an early
grave.”

“It would be a terrible shame, Mr. Ellis. I doubt I’d find anyone else to publish
my anarchic diatribes if you did expire.”

“I doubt it, too. May I expect your next article by Monday morning?”

“You may. Good afternoon, and thank you for lunch.”

C
HARLOTTE SPENT THE
rest of Saturday afternoon wandering
through Princes Park, not even bothering to find a bench and read the book she had
brought along, as was her habit. She was too restless to settle, Edward’s accusing
questions a troubling refrain.
Do you truly believe that your actions are beyond criticism? Are you really that perfect?

She arrived home at half past three and immediately went to her desk, keen to finish
her next column for Mr. Ellis. No sooner had she put pen to paper than the doorbell
rang. Janie was in the middle of preparing supper, and everyone else was still out
and about, so Charlotte answered the door.

A young man stood at the top of the steps, an oddly shaped box in his hands. His lorry
was parked, its engine rumbling, in the street beyond. “Good day, miss. I’ve a delivery
for Miss Charlotte Brown,”

“I am Miss Brown. I’m not expecting anything—”

He handed her the box, about two feet long, unmarked apart from her name and address,
and before she could ask where it was from he dashed back to his lorry and drove away.

Presumably a note or letter would be tucked inside. She carried the box downstairs
to the kitchen and set it on the table.

“What’s that you’ve got there, Miss Charlotte?” Janie asked, abandoning the carrots
she was scraping.

“I’ve no idea. I’m not sure how to open it, even.”

“Looks like the top’s been tacked down. Do you want to try and lever it off? Here’s
the butter knife.”

Inside was a layer of moss, still speckled with dew, its scent of earth and dim, deep
woods instantly filling the room. Charlotte peeled it back, her heart hammering in
her chest, for she’d an idea now of what she would find.

Beneath the moss lay at least four dozen roses of every imaginable variety and color:
palest ivory, blush pink, apricot, cerise,
a velvety scarlet. The bottom of each stem had been wrapped in damp cotton wool, which
had served to preserve the blooms perfectly on their journey from garden to kitchen
table.

Charlotte sat heavily on the nearest chair and tried to catch her breath. “Is there
a note?” she asked, though she was certain now of the roses’ origin.

“Yes, Miss Charlotte. Shall I open it?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“It says, ‘Felicitations.’ And the initial
E
. That’s all.”

In most English gardens, the roses were nearly done for the year, but at Cumbermere
Hall, in the sheltered parterre, under the watchful eyes of a gardener who loved the
flowers more than his own children, the blooms often lasted until September.