The Mersey Girls (28 page)

All Linnet’s frank and forthright soul begged to be allowed to tell Mr Cowan that it was about time Miss Peters was subjected to the sort of pressure she was clearly putting his child under, but by now, Linnet’s sympathy for Mollie was sufficiently strong to make her see that she simply had to remove Nanny Peters by stealth, for a couple of weeks, at least.

‘Mr Cowan, you must have female relatives, or friends, anyway,’ she urged. ‘You mentioned your mother . . .’

‘My mother likes a disciplined child; she holds Mollie up as an example to others and thinks the sun shines out of Nanny Peters’ . . . out of Nanny Peters,’ Mr Cowan said drily. ‘No help there, I’m afraid.’ He looked long and hard at Linnet. ‘Actually, Miss Murphy, I was wondering whether you . . .’

‘Me, Mr Cowan? But I’m like you, I’m at work all day. And besides . . .’

‘You have a fortnight’s holiday due to you at the end of the year which, I am sure, I can bring forward. It’s paid leave, Miss Murphy, and naturally, I would pay you Miss Peters’ salary for those two weeks as well. Now I want you to believe me when I say that when I first asked you to come out with me I had no intention of taking advantage of you – of expecting you to help me with Mollie on a personal basis, I mean – but simply wanted your advice. Only we did get on rather well, wouldn’t you say? And Mollie obviously likes you, and I let things slide and slide. Is it asking too much, Miss Murphy? Only I’m at my wits’ end and that’s the truth.’

Linnet glanced across to the window of the snackerie; outside, the sun shone from a clear blue sky and there were smiles on the faces of passersby. It would be really nice to have a couple of weeks’ break from the office, to sit in the beautiful garden of the house in Sunnyside, backing onto Prince’s Park, or to take Mollie on the tram and the overhead railway to Seaforth Sands, to feed the ducks, go rowing on the lake, visit the orangery and the aviary . . . why, it would be like a proper holiday! She watched a girl in a primrose coloured frock and sandals, with a straw hat perched on her dark hair, walking past hand in hand with a handsome young man and envied her her freedom. She herself could never stroll, not on a weekday. It would be fun, and she did like little Mollie. She turned back to Mr Cowan. He was still staring anxiously, pleadingly, across at her.

‘If you really can arrange for me to have the time off, I’d like to do it,’ she said slowly. ‘But what about putting Mollie to bed and so on, Mr Cowan? And getting her up, come to that? If she’s an early riser, could I get there in time?’

Mr Cowan’s smile spread, slowly, across his face. He looked as though an enormous weight had been taken off his mind, he even sat up straighter, or so it seemed to Linnet.

‘My dear Miss Murphy . . . you would stay in the house, of course. Why, Nanny Peters lives in and there’s no breath of scandal because my housekeeper lives in as well and two of the maids. Besides, you’d sleep, as Nanny Peters does, in the little room attached to the nursery. If you mean it . . . well, I should be – I should be eternally grateful.’

‘I do mean it,’ Linnet said. She wanted to help Mollie and besides, to be paid simply to stay for two weeks in a beautiful house, to have your meals made for you and delivered to you, to go out when you wished, to enjoy all the advantages of wealth without any strings . . . it was an opportunity given to few young girls in her position. ‘When do I start?’

‘I’ll tell Miss Peters that I’m going away and taking Mollie with me; I’ll say I’m going to visit a cousin with several children and shan’t be needing her services for two weeks. I’ll tell her she can have a holiday with pay,’ Mr Cowan said. Linnet realised that he must have been planning this all along, hoping she would come up with some such suggestion. He might have come straight out with it, she thought, but without resentment. A worried father, who loved his daughter and wanted what was best for her, could be forgiven many things. ‘If you could start your holiday at lunchtime a week on Saturday, Miss Murphy?’

‘If you can arrange it, Mr Cowan,’ Linnet said happily. ‘I can’t wait to see Mollie’s face when we wave Nanny Peters off!’

Roddy was annoyed with himself, almost as annoyed as he had been with Linnet. Brother and sister, indeed! He had never thought of her in that way and doubted whether Linnet, an only child to all intents and purposes, had the faintest idea of the way in which brothers and sisters regarded each other. Roddy, cursed with two older brothers and three younger ones but no sisters at all, was still sure that what he felt for Linnet – and what she undoubtedly felt for him – was a very different emotion to the mixture of exasperation and downright dislike which was how he often regarded his brothers.

But you can’t bleedin’ tell a woman anything, ’cos they know it all, Roddy told himself, crossing East Street to have a look in Edwin Jones’ windows. A look was sufficient, however; the windows were full of mouthwatering things, but the prices! Roddy moved on, glumly, further down the street, still looking in windows as he went.

He would have thoroughly enjoyed Southampton and window-shopping if it hadn’t been for the fact that he was missing Linnet, and sorely tempted to simply go down to the station, jump on a train, and storm up the Boulevard to her door. He could imagine the scene; himself at the door, Linnet pulling it open, eyes rounding with surprise and pleasure, himself pressing into her hand the beautiful present for which he was at this moment searching, saying how sorry he was for – well, for pushing his attentions upon her after their visit to the flicks that night . . . her warm smile, her open arms, her kisses . . .

It was a strange thing, Roddy thought broodingly, how a woman could look you in the eye and deny what was in her heart. Linnet loved him, she must do, because he loved her, didn’t he? Had loved her from the first moment they’d met, when the little silly had got in the way of his toboggan – how like a girl! – and been knocked for six, and had been rather good about it. He’d liked her then because she was a spunky kid, never moaning about her scraped knees or her bruises but simply telling him off for muckin’ up her messages. The Irish accent of her had fascinated him, too, though that had gradually faded and grown less over the years. But her satiny hair, the jut of her chin, the way her eyes smiled at you even when her mouth was serious, the sprinkling of golden freckles on her fair little face . . . God, she was his, she had to be, there could be no doubt of it! Why could she not see what was so patently obvious to him, that they were made for each other, could have no sort of life apart?

Still, it had not been wise to jump her in that doorway. Roddy touched his eye gingerly; she had a left hook which many a feller might have envied, you had to say that for her. A feller expects a female to kick and scratch so he bore no grudge for his bruised shins, but that left hook! She’d meant it, the little vixen, she’d packed all she had into that punch and taken his mind right off – well, off what it had been on. For a moment he had seen stars, and by the time his head had stopped whirling and his eye watering, she was marching off down the street, calling back some pretty unpleasant remarks from what he could recall. The one that stung had been
nasty, grubby
little boy
, but she hadn’t meant that, he was sure of it. And then, when he’d finally caught up with her and tried to apologise – without actually admitting he had been in the wrong, mind – she had said she looked on him as a brother. A bleedin’ brother, when she’d never had even one of them and he’d had five! He had tried to tell her that a brother didn’t behave towards a sister as he had always behaved towards her and she had said, frostily, ‘I should think not!’ and of course then he saw he’d put his foot in it again and had tried to make amends only she wouldn’t listen. She had simply gone on walking, and walking fast, too. Roddy, with trampled feet and bruised legs, to say nothing of scratched hands and an incipient black eye, had not felt equal to arguing with her all the way from the Paramount Theatre on London Road to the Boulevard so had lapsed into sulky silence long before they reached the tram stop.

And a tram, even a Green Goddess, with its leather upholstery and wonderfully comfortable seats, is no place to make up a quarrel. Linnet flounced into the vehicle and sat down and Roddy, naturally, sat next to her and she kept shrinking away until she must have been pressed so hard up against the window that it hurt. Then Roddy tried to tell her how he felt about her and the man in the seat in front turned and, raising his voice to combat the noise, for even a Green Goddess wasn’t exactly silent, told Linnet to save ’erself for ’er weddin’ night an’ be damned to the feller, and then laughed with great coarseness and advised Roddy to ‘gerrin a cold bath’ and do other things which would, he insinuated, resolve Roddy’s state both of mind and body.

And Linnet had given Roddy one long, startlingly horrible glare and had turned to the window. For the rest of the ride and all the walk home she had been totally silent, never saying a word in reply to his lengthy and disjointed monologue. And when they got back to her place she had shut the door in his face, very nearly adding a swollen nose to the black eye she had inflicted earlier.

He had been cross – well, bloody annoyed, in fact. He had vowed he would never speak to her or ask her out again. But the annoyance hadn’t lasted, not with him, because he was a magnanimous male and not a foolish and misguided female. Linnet, however, had borne a grudge, and borne it so effectively, what was more, that when he had gone round to Exchange Flags and hovered, she had simply pretended not to see him, had walked by him without a word or a look. Painful stuff, no matter how hard he tried to tell himself that she was misguided but would see the error of her ways very soon.

So when the
Mary Rose
had put into Southampton for repairs he had decided not to send her a telegram explaining that he would not be home for some time. Why should he? She had refused to accept his apologies, refused even to speak to him. If I play her game, ignore her, make her suffer, then she’ll see reason and be nice to me again, his thoughts ran, incoherently it is true, but hopefully. And then, when she realises what she’s lost, I’ll return, laden with gifts, and it’ll all be good again.

Only . . . only women were so
unreliable
, so confoundedly strange when it came to matters of the heart. Suppose she didn’t repent of her nastiness to him? Suppose she kept it up, went on refusing to speak, or go out, or be good friends? Suppose, in short, he had sacrificed that good friendship, which was so valuable to him, for a quick fumble in a doorway after a romantic cinema show? Suppose he had lost her?

Roddy had been mooching along the street, hands in pockets, his mind a million miles away, but when that thought entered his head, so did an icy determination. He could not lose her, she was the most precious thing in his life. He must make her listen to him, he must, he must!

He would get on the first available train home in the morning and would put his case before her just as soon as he could. Only first, of course, he must buy her a present so magnificent that the ice round her heart would melt and she would fall on his chest in gratitude.

Determinedly, he began to retrace his steps towards Edwin Jones’ magnificent emporium.

After considerable thought, Linnet decided she would have to tell Rose where she was going, but most definitely not her landlady. She might have told Mrs Sullivan, who was very interested in the whole affair, but perhaps because of her quarrel with Roddy she had not been visiting the Sullivans as often as usual and suddenly it began to seem a rather odd sort of thing to do, to have a holiday looking after her boss’s little girl. Mrs Sullivan was far too practical to assume that Linnet was fishing for a rich widower, but she might wonder what her young friend was playing at. Sometimes, indeed, Linnet wondered herself. She did not think of Mr Cowan as a gentleman friend, though he was both a friend and a gentleman, nor did she consider their friendship in any way romantic, though that was exactly how Rose saw it. Linnet liked the lifestyle Mr Cowan enjoyed and at times played with the idea of being the next Mrs Cowan, but she knew, really, that it was just a foolish daydream and nothing more. Mr Cowan was too old for her no matter what Rose might say, and he was too rich, as well. Men with houses in Sunnyside, with housekeepers, nannies, maids, gardeners, did not marry little secretaries. Besides, Linnet reminded herself, she did not want to marry anyone, not yet. Life was far too full and exciting.

But having a holiday in his house, acting as nanny to his little girl – that was different. And if she was right and Nanny Peters was the cause of Mollie’s strange behaviour, then Mr Cowan would be grateful, Mollie would start to act like a normal child, and Linnet could crawl back under the wallpaper, she supposed a little sadly. She might enjoy her excursions into the good life, but she was, at heart, a realist. Once she had served her purpose and sorted Mollie out, then Mr Cowan’s secretary would be just that once more.

So on the Saturday that her holiday job started Linnet told her landlady that she was going to the seaside with a friend from work. It said a lot for her dull reputation, she thought afterwards, that her landlady immediately assumed that the friend was a woman and the holiday resort New Brighton.

‘Ave a good time, queen,’ she called as Linnet, suitcase in hand, set out for the tram stop. ‘Send us a card!’

Nodding and smiling, Linnet decided to persuade Mr Cowan to take her and Mollie to Llandudno next day; there she could buy a supply of cards which she could post, judiciously, over the coming fortnight. Few people, she guessed, would bother to look at the postmark and if they did would assume it had been marked twice, in error.

At work everyone apart from Rose – and Mr Cowan, of course – assumed she was going to stay with relatives who lived in North Wales. That was what they did so why should she be any different? What Nanny Peters thought Linnet had no way of knowing, but when she arrived at Sunnyside she learned from Mrs Eddis that Nanny Peters had gone off for her own holiday in no very good frame of mind.