Mourning Doves (29 page)

A veiled Louise and a businesslike Mrs Johnson signed their way through a sheaf of papers laid before them by Mr Barnett. Firmly guided by him, Louise put her name to every page without reading it or raising a single objection, exactly as Cousin Albert had taken for granted she would do.

The two ladies afterwards politely shook hands, and Cousin Albert shook the solicitor’s hand. He breathed a sigh of relief that he would shortly have Louise off his hands. The house was sold.

Mr Barnett got up from his desk and bowed everyone out of his office.

In the outer office, Mrs Johnson paused, and said hesitantly to the other three that, if Mrs Gilmore could kindly spare the time, she would very much like to go over the house with Louise, while they were both in Liverpool. ‘And you could tell me which chimneys smoke at times, like, and how long the hot water boiler takes to heat and how much water it holds – maybe I should have a bigger one installed. I am sure you could make some very useful suggestions regarding the adaptation of the house to nursing.’

Louise turned to Albert. ‘Oh, Albert,’ she wailed, ‘I couldn’t bear to look at the house.’

Over her head, Mrs Johnson mouthed, ‘It would save me a lot of time if she would.’

Albert sighed, and said to the black veil, ‘I know it would
be difficult for you, my dear Louise. We have to remember, however, that Mrs Johnson hopes to help men who have been badly wounded and need care until they can be admitted to a more permanent military institution. She naturally wants them to be as comfortable as possible.’

Mrs Johnson beamed at him. A sob came from under the veil.

He looked desperately round at the agent for inspiration, but before they could think of any way to persuade Louise, Mrs Johnson, a nurse with long experience, chimed in, in dulcet tones, to suggest that poor Mrs Gilmore might feel a bit easier if she had a nice hot cup of tea and a little rest in the tea shop across the road, before going to the house. ‘It would set her up like nothing else would.’ She smiled at the veil, and then added persuasively, ‘I wouldn’t keep her long at the house, but it would help to speed things up if Mrs G. would tell me a few details about it.’

Cousin Albert had put his arm round Louise’s shoulders, and he could feel her cringe at being referred to as Mrs G. He felt that he should refuse and should take her home. But Louise, suddenly aware of cohorts of wounded in dire need of comfort, said, with a sniff, that if advising about chimneys would help our dear wounded, she would certainly make the trip.

Hugely relieved, Cousin Albert swept them into the lift. They were propelled down to the ground floor by an elderly, uniformed, one-armed lift man who, seeing yet another forlorn, veiled widow, leaning on Albert’s arm, pulled the lift’s ropes with care and brought them to a particularly gentle stop at street level. ‘Poor dear!’ he said to Albert. ‘Lost ‘er boys? I see ’em nearly every day.’

Slightly annoyed at this very personal remark, Albert merely nodded his head, and then eased the ladies out of the lift.

In the café, Louise lifted her veil back and silently ate a
petit four and drank a luke-warm cup of tea, while the philistine opposite her downed a rum baba and an equally chilled cup of tea. Cousin Albert, refusing tea, went to get a taxicab. The estate agent elected to go with him.

A widow herself, Mrs Johnson felt very sorry about Louise’s grief, but did not know what to say. She rather wished, after all, she had not asked her to visit the house.

Finally, when she could endure the silence no longer, she asked tentatively if Louise would be kind enough to furnish her with the names of reliable local workmen.

Louise swallowed the last of the petit four, looked up and stared blankly at her.

‘You see, Mrs Gilmore, I’m from Manchester, where I’m already running one little nursing home. I don’t know Liverpool very well, so I’m anxious to know who to turn to. I also want to get reliable staff.’

Louise nodded, and Mrs Johnson, feeling the need of some further explanation, went on, ‘Me hubby left me a thriving grocery shop and I ran it for a bit. But I’m no grocer. I’m a good nurse though, even if I says it myself – and I never gave it up altogether, even when I was married – so I sold the business and bought the Manchester nursing home – and it’s done real well. A Liverpool doctor came to see one of my patients, and he gave me the idea that I could start another one here.’

She put down her cup and leaned back from the table. ‘So here I am.’

By this time, Louise was diverted. She managed to remark, ‘How interesting. How will you run them both?’

‘Well, there’s lots of army nurses out of work at present – and there’s a real shortage of men for them to marry, so they’ve got to find work. I’ve a couple of real experienced nursing sisters workin’ for me in Manchester – and the visiting doctors trust them. I can spend some time getting your house ready – and I’ll see how we go.’

Haltingly, Louise began to tell her of her own work
amongst the deaf-blind. By the time Albert, puffing from his exertions, returned to tell them that a taxi awaited them and that the estate agent was already ensconced in it they were deeply engaged in conversation, and Louise was enduring the dropped aitches of Mrs Johnson with considerable fortitude.

Women! He would never understand them, Albert thought, as he paid the bill.

As they trailed up the unwashed front steps of the empty house and then waited while the estate agent, using his own key, unlocked the dusty front door, Louise wanted to cry. She was further distressed when they entered the vast emptiness of the hall.

‘I thought I’d divide the hall up into me office and a reception area,’ remarked Mrs Johnson prosaically as she looked slowly round it.

From behind the veil came a heavy sigh, and then a sudden shriek.

The service door at the back of the hall had opened silently, and, like a ghost, a white-haired woman clad in black stood before them. Her mouth agape with consternation, the woman stood transfixed as she faced the little group by the front door.

‘Oh, Ma’am!’ she gasped.

An astonished Louise flung back her veil with an angry gesture. ‘Winnie! What on earth are you doing here?’

Albert was equally surprised. The estate agent, who had been putting his key chain back into his waistcoat pocket, looked up in absolute bewilderment. Both Mrs Johnson and he knew Winnie as the temporary caretaker of the house and neither could understand the fuss.

Sudden tears were running down Winnie’s face. She glanced desperately to either side, as if trying to escape.

Louise repeated her question.

Winnie licked her lips. She hung her head and said
sullenly, ‘When you left, I’d got nowhere to go – though I tried hard to get a job.’

‘So?’ Louise forgot her sorrow at having to look once more at her empty home. Her property had been violated, taken advantage of, and she was very annoyed.

‘I thought you wouldn’t mind, Ma’am. You never moved the furniture out of my room – wasn’t worth it, you said. Likewise, the coal in the cellar.’ She twisted a grubby handkerchief in her hands. ‘I thought it would be useful to you if someone were in the house. It’d keep vandals from smashing the winders or even getting into the place. Till I got a live-in place, like.’

She fell silent.

The estate agent said hastily that he had been under the impression that that was exactly what Mrs Gilmore had intended. He had felt it was an extremely good idea. He had met Winnie on his first inspection of the home. She had said then that she was the cook and had served Mrs Gilmore for many years, and she had showed him round the kitchens and cellars. Mrs Gilmore might possibly recall that she was out when he came.

Mrs Gilmore did recall her unhappy visit to Phyllis’s house on that day. She sniffed. It may very well have been a sensible idea, but Winnie had no right to take advantage of her like that.

‘I still feel that her presence is very reprehensible. You had decent notice, Winnie, and you should have left on the day agreed as soon as the cleaning was completed.’

Winnie said shamefacedly, ‘Yes, Ma’am.’

‘You are to pack your bag and go, before we leave this house. You are trespassing.’

‘Yes, Ma’am.’

Mrs Johnson had watched the exchange with fascination. The woman had held her temper admirably in the face of her employer’s anger. And she was the cook? On her previous visits, Winnie had always discreetly withdrawn to
her attic bedroom, and Mrs Johnson had thought her to be an old, trusted nanny, and had never really talked to her. The estate agent had explained that she was temporarily caretaking the house, which was the explanation of her presence given to him by Winnie.

Winnie slowly turned and went back down the kitchen staircase, where her straw trunk lay in a cupboard. It held everything she owned, and she had kept it downstairs so that she could move out quickly when the house changed hands.

In the vast, practically empty kitchen, she sat down on a solitary straight chair, put her hands over her face and sobbed aloud. She felt she had no friend in the world who could help her. Mrs Gilmore was a soulless bitch.

Meanwhile, Louise and Mrs Johnson went slowly round the house. Much of the curtaining had been included in the price of the house, and Mrs Johnson assured Louise that it would be a comfort to ‘the boys’ because it would keep out both cold in the winter and too much light in the summer.

In the bathroom, Mrs Johnson explained that each ward would have its own washstands, chamber pots and bedpans, and the invalids would mostly need bed baths. So one bathroom would probably be enough.

They discussed plumbers and painters and gas men and gardeners, until Louise became quite absorbed in the project, and Albert, finding an abandoned chair in a front bedroom, decided resignedly that he would sit there until they had finished.

As they descended to the basement kitchens, Mrs Johnson said she would make the servants’ sitting room into another ward. It looked out on to the brick-lined area, a sunken yard alongside the basement which allowed light into the room. ‘I could put some pots of geraniums out
there, and it would be a nice place for men who can be lifted out of bed to sit in the fresh air. I believe in fresh air.’

‘There is a large garden,’ Louise reminded her.

‘Oh, I’ll grow a pile of fresh vegetables in that, though I’ll keep a tiny lawn with flowers for the boys.’

Winnie heard the conversation as they came down the stairs, and she hastily wiped her face and picked up her hat from the cupboard. As they entered, she jabbed in her hatpins, and then glanced sulkily up at the ladies.

Mrs Johnson smiled kindly at her, and said, ‘Oh, Winnie. I would like to have a word with you before you go.’

‘Yes, Ma’am. Shall I wait here?’

‘Please do.’

In that second, Louise realised that the house was truly not hers any more, and that Mrs Johnson now had every right to give orders in it. She wanted to expostulate, however, that Winnie was her servant and that she would say what she was to do. But she equally suddenly realised that this was no longer so; she had, long since, dismissed her.

She thought she would choke, as Winnie smiled suddenly at the new owner. Winnie sensed that she had just found herself a new job.

They inspected the area and the steps that led from it up to the garden.

Louise felt she had had enough. She pulled her veil over her face and said she must go home. They rejoined the estate agent patiently standing in the hall. He gave the entire collection of keys to the house to the new owner, with the remark that Winnie had additional keys to the back door and the back garden gate.

‘I’ll get them from her,’ replied Mrs Johnson placidly.

Hearing the sounds of departure, Albert came slowly down the stairs. Farewells were said, and he escorted a very frustrated Louise down the steps to the waiting taxi.

‘Tell the taxi driver to come back for me, when he’s
finished with you,’ Mrs Johnson shouted after them.

The taxi driver heard and tipped his hat in acknowledgement. Albert merely nodded.

In the cab, Louise exploded. ‘So that’s how Winnie was able to come and go. Celia never collected her house keys from her. Stupid girl!’

Albert sighed, and began the slow task of calming her down. To divert her attention, he spoke of the impending sale of the silverware which would, he was sure, do much to alleviate her present impoverished situation.

That evening, Celia got a resounding scolding for forgetting to collect all the keys of the old house, and subsequently wept silently in her bedroom.

A few days later, the silver was valued and a reserve price put on it prior to auction. Once it was sold, Louise had a respectable bank account – in a local bank, with a charming young manager, Mr Gwynn-Jones, who quite put Mr Carruthers in the shade – and Edna got her charwoman.

With regard to the proposed antique shop, Celia was, at first, frightened to death at the sudden realisation of the responsibilities she was taking on.

Supported by Edna’s, Betty Houghton’s and John Philpotts’ encouragement, however, and a second visit to see Dr Mason to have her prescription of Dr Parrish’s Food renewed, she began slowly to bloom. Dr Mason did not fail to notice a certain new liveliness in her, and took the time to discover the source of it.