Rose of Tralee (23 page)

And throughout the examination of the house, Rose could see Lily’s eyes growing brighter, her smile more natural. It was wonderful, just what they had been searching for, with a pleasant hall, a parlour, a big kitchen and a tiny scullery on the ground floor, two large bedrooms and a bathroom on the first floor, three bedrooms on the second floor and an attic up a rickety flight of stairs with two tiny windows set in the tiles and marvellous views.

Having gone all over the house, Mrs Kibble took them down to a large, warm kitchen where she sat them down at a table and provided them with cups of tea and a selection of biscuits. Rose had crunched a biscuit immediately but she could see that her mother was too nervous to do more than sip her tea. Then Lily put the cup down, took a deep breath, and asked the inevitable question: ‘Why are you selling up, Mrs Kibble? And – and why’s the house so cheap? ’Cos it’s – it’s awful nice, and very large.’

Mrs Kibble stared at her. ‘But did they not tell you? This is not my house, Mrs Ryder. It belonged to a dear friend. And the reason that it’s not been taken before is, I believe, because I live in the basement flat. I am, dear Mrs Ryder, what they call a sitting tenant, which means I cannot be evicted.’

‘Well, I don’t see nothing wrong wi’ that arrangement,’ Lily said, after a pause. ‘Did Mr Exeter tell you that I’m going to take lodgers? An’ I take it you pay rent?’

‘Yes, but it is a very small rent,’ Mrs Kibble said almost apologetically. ‘The previous owner, Mrs Rivers, was a dear friend, you see, and I helped her in the house as sort of part payment I suppose you could say. Not everyone cares for that sort of arrangement.’

‘Well, I should like it very much,’ Lily said calmly. ‘Would – would you be prepared to continue the arrangement, Mrs Kibble? My daughter is working so won’t be able to give me much help around the house so I had intended to get someone in for a few hours each week once the house is full. Why should it not be you?’

From that moment on, the Ryders felt that their future, if not secure, was at least settled for them. Rose gave up her job to help Lily with arrangements and purchases and exactly a year ago today, they had moved in. Rose could still remember the thrill of it, the excitement of possession.

It had lasted, too, in that they both loved the house and Lily and Mrs Kibble got on extremely well. Together, the three of them cleaned down, stripped wallpaper and hung new, painted skirting boards, picture rails and window frames. Mrs Rivers’ furniture was to be sold at auction, so Mrs Kibble and Lily went along and bought the few items they could afford and that they thought would be suitable for a lodging house. Rose wrote advertisement, and put them up in the local shops and took them in to the
Echo
offices so that they might also appear in the newspaper. Curtain material was bought and made up on Lily’s old sewing machine, carpets were frowned over and linoleum replaced that which was too worn, Lily felt, for respectability.

The first few months had been a trial, however, because Lily was so nervous about taking in men who
she did not know that they did not manage to fill all their rooms. And they had so many rooms! A front parlour, a living-kitchen and a scullery on the ground floor, as well as a small cloakroom leading off the hall where Lily kept her cleaning materials, two big bedrooms on the first floor, with the bathroom overlooking the back garden, three decent-sized rooms on the second floor, and a big attic room, which was Rose’s special domain. Many a decent-looking man turned up at the door, only to be regretfully turned away by Mrs Ryder, because the chap could not immediately satisfy her with impeccable references.

What kept them afloat were commercial travellers, who tended to stay only a night or two, which meant, of course, that the Ryders’ house was never full, and they never knew with any real certainty what the next few weeks would bring in the way of rent-money.

And then there were men who thought they would settle down in the pleasant house in the Vale, where Mrs Ryder made them so welcome and proved to be an excellent cook.

‘It’s being a seaport,’ Lily said gloomily, when nice, respectable Mr Truelove gave in his notice only ten days after nice, respectable Mr Ellis had done exactly the same thing. ‘They’ve had enough of the sea and think they’ll settle down ashore, but they don’t, they’re too used to moving on. What we need, Rosie, is someone who’ll stay with us for a year or two.’

‘Well, I’m going to get a job, Mam,’ Rose had told her mother a couple of months earlier. ‘I’ve done a year of night classes and me shorthand and typing is really good. I know the money was poor when I was in the gown shop, but now I’ll get an office job an’ that’ll be better paid, you see.’

So she had done just as she had said; gone out and
got herself a job. She was the junior in a block of offices on Dale Street and was expected to arrive there before the rest of the staff so that she could open up. She was happy there, settled, and although her salary was not marvellous, it was almost twice that which she had been getting in the gown shop.

But the lodger situation was still not as good as it might have been, and she had just written out yet another advertisement, which she would take round to the
Echo
offices in her lunch-break. But you had better get a move on, girl, she chided herself as she turned into Tythebarn Street and glanced up at the clock above the chemist’s shop. You don’t want to be late and give Mr Lionel a bad impression or he might decide he’d rather have an office boy than you after all!

‘Rosie! Hey, Rosie!’

Rose turned round. Behind her, her cousin Mona waved frantically, then cupped her hands round her mouth and shouted, ‘Come back here a mo, our Rosie. I’ve got suffin’ to tell you.’

Rose had not seen her cousin since they had moved into the new house, and it seemed rude to continue on her way now, particularly as she was well aware that Mona wanted to lodge with them. ‘What is it?’ she asked therefore, as soon as Mona was close enough to hear.

‘I’m on me way to work, Mona, and I daren’t be late.’

Mona cast her eyes up to heaven and heaved a sigh, but grabbed her cousin’s arm as she did so. ‘I won’t keep you a moment, queen, it’s just that I’ve gorra lodger for you ... as well as me, I mean.’

‘Oh? Well, look, chuck, you’d best go round an’ have a word wi’ me mam, she’s the one ...’

Lily had told Rose that she suspected Mona of taking money from men and Rose, though she thought this very shocking, was still rather fond of her cousin and did not want to get involved in a terrible row, like the one Mam had had with Aunt Daisy. Besides, Mona had said she was out of all that, or so Mam had said, so why not take her at her word and let her lodge with them? It would be fun, she thought, but knew she could not go against her mother. If Lily’s mind was made up ... but might not the temptation of a second lodger, if she accepted Mona, change even the sternest mind? Lodgers were thin on the ground at the moment, though Rose knew that her mother was still hoping to get answers from her advertisements in the newspaper and from the neatly-lettered card in the window. But until she did so they would be on short commons and Rose could tell, from the neat little line between her mother’s brows and the tightness of her mouth, that Lily was truly worried.

‘Your mam’s not ’ere right now, chuck, an’ you are,’ Mona said quickly. ‘Besides, I feelin’ she ain’t too keen. But I’m out o’ the game all right an’ tight, I’ll tell you all about it when we meet, honest to God I will. If you can persuade her it’s gospel truth, an’ that I’m as decent a girl as yourself, surely she’ll lerrus share?’

‘Look, walk alongside me if you’ve got to keep talkin’,’ Rose said desperately. ‘Me job ain’t much, but it’s all I’ve got. I’m goin’ to evenin’ classes to improve my shorthand an’ typin’, so’s I can be someone’s secretary, but that takes time an’ while I wait we’ve got to eat.’

‘You ain’t the only one,’ Mona pointed out, panting along beside her. ‘My boss is a reg’lar slave-driver, won’t give me five minutes I ain’t earned. Look, how
about if I meet you this evenin’?’

‘Can’t. I’m at the tech,’ Rose said thankfully. ‘Go an’ see me mam, she’ll be glad to see you, gi’ you a cuppa.’

‘Wharrabout your dinner hour? Don’t they give you no time off for your dinners?’ Mona said desperately, still trotting along beside her. ‘Oh, if I’m caught out ’ere by me boss there’ll be ’ell to pay!’

‘Ye-es ... all right, meet me at twenty to one by Sainsbury’s caff in Imperial Buildings,’ Rose said. ‘Don’t be late!’

‘I’ll be there,’ Mona promised, turning back. ‘Don’t you be late either, you cheeky young cow!’

Giggling, Rose hurried on her way and reached her office just as another office junior arrived. She greeted him cordially and whipped up the long flight of stairs to her domain, which was the outer office and the small kitchen. She filled the big iron kettle and stood it rather precariously on the gas ring. Then she got out the cups and checked the sugar and biscuit supply. She looked at the clock in the outer office; time to get the milk.

There was a shop on the corner which sold tins of milk but Mr Edward, the oldest of the three Evans brothers who owned and ran the business, did not approve of tea or coffee made with tinned milk, so one of Rose’s first tasks in the morning was to hurry along to the dairy with her enamel jug to get fresh milk. She usually put the kettle on before she went and because she ran most of the way it was generally about to boil when she got back. Then she made the tea, let it brew whilst she went into the outer office and made sure that everything was ready for the rest of the staff and such customers as might call upon them in person, and returned to the kitchen so that
she would be ready to pour out the freshly made tea when Mr Edward, Mr Lionel or Mr Garnett might put in an appearance.

The firm was called Patchett & Ross, though so far as Rose knew there was no one of either of those names on the staff, and they were import-export agents, which meant, for Rose, that a good few of the incoming and outgoing letters were addressed to strange names and stranger places, and that Mr Edward wrote a great many letters to various shipping lines which, if they were urgent, she delivered by hand, sometimes waiting for a reply, at others simply turning round and returning to Dale Street with all speed.

But now the weather was fine, she was back with the milk, Mr Edward and Mr Lionel had come in together in a pleasant frame of mind and gone though to Mr Edward’s large office, and she had the tea steaming in the pot and the milk standing in the sink to keep cool.

In the old days, before they had employed Rose, the firm had had an office boy called Rufus who had made the tea and – she assumed – typed painful notes on the huge, old-fashioned typewriter in the outer office. But Rufus had gone to sea as soon as a berth was offered and since he was the third office boy to do so in three years the brothers had decided to try a girl for a change.

So far, everything had gone well. Rose had been told she made far better tea than Rufus, typed, when she had to, with fewer mistakes and was very much quicker to return after her errands. She worked as hard as she possibly could, smiled at both customers and staff – and why should she not, when she was happy with them? – and dreamed of the day when
she might take over as private secretary to one of the brothers, thus trebling or quadrupling her wages and her importance to the company.

But unfortunately, as Mr Lionel kept stressing, these were not good times for import-export agents. ‘A Depression means no one buys or sells as much, and since we need both buyers and sellers we’re bound to suffer more than most,’ he was apt to say gloomily, when a would-be customer went elsewhere or a shipping line could not find a space for their goods. ‘But we’ll soldier on, eh Ryder?’

Being a mere office girl, Rose did not get a handle to her name, though all the typists and clerical workers were called Miss this or Miss that. Not that she minded. It was a job when work was scarce, it was a happy office, and although fourteen shillings and sixpence a week might not be very much, it was a deal better than she would have got in a small shop somewhere. Even Mona, who had worked in the flower shop for a number of years and was past twenty, only got eighteen shillings a week, though she sometimes got tips from grateful customers when she delivered a particularly fine bouquet. She had once told Rose that she trebled her wages on Valentine’s Day each year and did almost as well in the pre-Christmas period, when folk ordered wreaths and Christmas trees and fancy table arrangements.

But right now she should be taking the tea through. She poured two cups, added a china plate upon which she laid out three plain biscuits and two gingernuts, then popped her head out of the kitchen. By squinting sideways she could see the half-glazed door of Mr Edward’s office. Through it the figures of the two elder brothers could be seen dimly. She was about to go back into the kitchen for the tray,
however, when Mr Garnett came loping across the outer office. He was a good deal younger than the others, taller and thinner and less substantial, as though their parents had used all the good material making the first two and had had to water Mr Garnett down a little.

Hastily, Rose poured a third cup of tea, added more biscuits and set off with her tray. She would deliver the tea and then go into the typists’ room and see whether there were any early deliveries for her. Breezily, she crossed the room with her heavy tray, bumped briefly on the door and flung it open. She carried it across to Mr Edward’s lovely big desk with its pink blotter, its silver ink-pots and the trays for pins and paper-clips and stood the cups carefully before him. ‘Mornin’, sirs,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Nice one today, isn’t it? We’ve run out o’ custard creams but there’s plenty o’ rich tea.’

‘Morning, Ryder,’ Mr Edward said, whilst Mr Lionel muttered something about the typists eating the biscuits and Mr Garnett sat down on one of the revolving leather armchairs and began to make a chain with the paper-clips. ‘Get some petty cash from Miss Fielding and buy some more custard creams, would you? We’ve got several customers coming in later ... don’t want to offer ’em plain biscuits.’