The House of Women Read online

  ‘I think there’s still more to come,’ she said when, out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the advancing waiter bearing a tray of vegetable dishes.

  ‘One thing’s for sure’—his voice was still a whisper—‘we’ll be heavier when we leave than when we came.’…

  It was half an hour later when, the meal finished, they went into the lounge for coffee. Again they sat in the corner, and no-one spoke to them; some smiled when passing them, others acknowledged them with a slight bowing of the head.

  ‘There’s one thing I must say,’ Peggy said, sitting back in the plush seat, ‘your father’s got good taste.’

  She was smiling widely at him. She was feeling different, happy. Perhaps it was the wine, she told herself; she’d had three glasses. Wait till she told them back home. Sherry was the only thing they ever drank there, and then it had to be an occasion.

  After a while, beginning to feel rather warm, she said brightly, ‘Shall we take a walk?’

  And he answered just as brightly, ‘Why not! We can do what we like. For a whole week we can do what we like.’

  Yes, he was right: for a whole week they could do what they liked.

  She had undressed in the bathroom and was now ready for bed. She did not feel so gay now as she had been two hours earlier when they set out to see the town.

  Her nightdress had a square neck and it was sleeveless, but there was a matching coat to go with it, a negligee, the shop assistant had termed it. Her great-gran had chosen it, and paid for it.

  She had to draw in a number of long deep breaths before she could leave the bathroom and go into the bedroom. And there he was standing near the dressing table brushing his hair. He was wearing pyjamas and he looked taller, and when he turned to face her she saw the man again. She went and sat on the side of the bed and it bounced slightly under her light weight.

  He came and sat down beside her and, putting his arm around her shoulder, he said, ‘It…it’ll be all right.’

  ‘Andrew.’

  Her face was close to his.

  ‘Yes?’

  She gulped in her throat, closed her eyes for a moment, then looked at him again and said, ‘Don’t do anything tonight, will you not, please?’

  He drew slightly back from her. ‘But…well, it’s…it’s usual, and it isn’t as if we hadn’t…’

  ‘I know, I know.’ She edged away from him now. ‘I know all that. That’s why we are both sitting here. Don’t rub it in. But, somehow, tonight’s been so nice, everybody’s been lovely. I didn’t think it would be after that…well after the registry office, but it has been. So…so will you…I mean, will you not?’

  His lips moved over one another, his head bobbed in small jerks. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘All right. There’s…there’s plenty of time, I suppose, but it’s usual. Well’—he hunched up one shoulder—‘so they say. But they say so much, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes; yes, they do. You…you may hold me.’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head; then gave a small laugh as he said, ‘No; I wouldn’t be able to do that because…well.’

  ‘All right.’ She moved past him and got into the bed, and he went round to the other side and got into the bed. And after she had stretched out her arm and turned off the bedside light, he did the same at his side. Then her other hand groped towards him and found his hand, and she pressed it for a moment as she said, ‘Thanks, Andrew.’

  ‘You’re welcome, Mrs Jones,’ he said, and at this they both began to laugh, she so much that she had to turn on her side and bury her head in the pillow.

  It had turned out all right. It augured well for the future.

  On the Saturday morning, just prior to their leaving, the chambermaid looked at her and said, ‘I hope everything goes all right for you.’

  The kind look and the way in which the girl spoke the words strongly suggested to Peggy that the hotel staff must have guessed that she had to get married. Perhaps his father had said something. Anyway, what did it matter? Things had turned out much better than she had expected, helped undoubtedly by the solicitous attitude of both management and staff.

  When the manager himself shook hands with them and said that he hoped they would come again; that, in fact, they would continue to make Harrogate their holiday home for many years to come, she felt that Andrew grew in stature the way he answered the manager: ‘We will do that, sir,’ he said; ‘I can promise you. And you have been so kind to us; we’ll not forget it.’

  It was strange but she was finding out that Andrew could talk to other people with much more ease than he could talk to her. And he had quite a nice voice.

  They arrived home in the afternoon and went straight to the annexe. After the hotel, it seemed terribly small, yet welcoming, and so much so that, having taken off their outdoor clothes, they made straight for the kitchen as though nothing were more natural, and she put the kettle on. Only then did she open the cupboard doors to find that the shelves were well stocked with food, dried and tinned goods, and the fridge with perishables, which sight must have brought them back to face reality, for as she went to mash the tea she suddenly stopped, saying, ‘What am I doing? They’ll be expecting us to go straight across there and…and tell them all about it,’ and he, his voice flat now, said, ‘Yes, yes, I suppose so. And this is where it all starts.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just what I say: the holiday is over, the living starts from now. You’ll be at their beck and call and I’ll be at everybody’s beck and call in that grease shop. But’—now he stabbed his finger at her—‘it won’t always be like this; that hotel’s opened my eyes. I’m going to get on, Peggy. I am, I’m going to get on.’

  ‘I’m sure you are, Andrew. Yes, I’m sure you are. But in the meantime’—she smiled at him—‘we had better get on across the yard and let them know we’re back. Come on.’

  For a moment it was as if she had become a schoolgirl again for she darted towards the communicating door, and he followed her, but more steadily. And when they entered the large kitchen and found it empty he stood looking about him in open admiration.

  ‘They must be in the sitting room,’ she said.

  In the hall he paused and looked about him. He had been in the house only once before and he had been too scared to take much notice of anything, only that the place appeared huge to him.

  She had opened the far door and when he heard her exclaim, ‘We’re back!’ he hurried to join her and watched her run to where her grandmother was rising from the couch exclaiming, ‘Oh, my dear, my dear! How wonderful to see you again!’ And after she had been embraced he watched her bend over the other woman on the couch and be enfolded in the upraised arm. This then was the great-gran, the boss. And now her strident voice was directed towards him as she cried, ‘Come along in. Don’t stand there; there’s a draught from that door. Close it behind you.’

  He did as he was bidden, then moved up the room and, holding his hand out to Victoria Pollock, he said politely, ‘How d’you do?’

  Victoria didn’t actually answer him, but smiled widely at him and shook his hand. Then he was shaking the old lady’s hand and saying, ‘How d’you do?’ She, however, did answer: ‘I do very well, young man,’ she said. ‘How d’you do?’ His wide mouth stretched and he laughed as he said, ‘Splendidly, thank you.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, splendidly.’ Emma Funnell looked at her great-granddaughter. ‘That signifies that you’ve had a very good week,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, Great-Gran; and it was most enjoyable. I like Harrogate. We are going back there again. They were so nice at the hotel.’

  ‘Sit down. Sit down, and have a cup of tea; we’ve just had ours, but there’s plenty in the pot.’

  Victoria was now bustling around the sofa table that stood at the end of the couch. So they both sat down, Peggy next to her great-grandmother and Andrew in a leather chair to the side of the fireplace. But when Emma Funnell demanded now, ‘Well, let’s have all your news,’ Peggy said, ‘Where’s Ma
m?’

  ‘Oh, the last I saw of her she was about to slip across to May’s. She didn’t expect you until later, not until this evening, really.’

  ‘Oh. Then I’ll keep it until she comes back.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing, miss, or missis as you are now.’ The old lady turned to Andrew. ‘Anyway, young man, how did you find your week? What was the hotel like really?’

  ‘Oh, very upstage.’

  ‘What? What do you mean by upstage?’

  He looked uneasy for a moment, then gave a little laugh before he said, ‘Well, the usual term is posh…it was really high-class.’

  ‘And your father paid for that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, well! Tell me what it was like in this upstage-posh-high-class hotel.’

  He glanced at Peggy; then his neck jerked in his collar, and this brought his chin out: it was as if he had come to a decision. Smiling at the woman he had already stamped in his mind as a quaint old bossy boots, he went into a detailed description, not only of the hotel itself but also of the treatment they had received from the staff; of the champagne sent with the manager’s compliments to their table the evening of their arrival, and of his bidding them goodbye when they left.

  As Peggy listened she again saw the man emerging. She also noticed that her great-gran was not only listening to his description of their week in Harrogate but that she was also weighing him up and favourably, too, she thought. As for her grandmother, she was beaming: she had never seen her look so relaxed, even happy. There could, however, be another reason for both their attitudes: her father was no longer in the house. She had forgotten about him being away; now she realised there was a lightness everywhere, that her grandmother was actually laughing. She had been in her presence now about fifteen minutes and she hadn’t heard her complain about one of her ailments. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if her father never came back! ‘Eeh! Dear me. Dear me…’

  ‘What’s the matter, child? You feeling faint?’ Emma Funnell had held her hand up towards Andrew to check his flow and, taking Peggy’s hand, she asked her, ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘No, no, Great-Gran; just for the moment I felt a little queasy, that’s all. If you don’t mind I’ll go and get a breath of air. I’ll tell you what, I’ll go across to the Conways and tell Mam we’re back.’ As she rose from the couch Andrew, too, got to his feet, but hastily she said, ‘No; you stay and go on telling them all about it. Tell them about the old gentleman who kept taking snuff and his wife sneezing, saying, “A-tishoo! Pardon!”‘

  ‘Yes…Oh yes,’ and he smiled as he nodded at her.

  Then Emma Funnell said imperiously, ‘Sit down then, sit down. And don’t worry; she’ll be all right. She’ll have a number of these turns before she finishes. You’ll have to get used to them. But come on, tell us about the man who took snuff.’

  Peggy stood outside the drawing room door for a moment. The guilt feeling brought on by her shocking thoughts was still with her, but more so was she feeling amazement at how Andrew could talk and, more strangely still, how both her gran and her great-gran had accepted him, especially her great-gran. That was surprising.

  She walked the well-worn way across the yard, through the garden, down through the strip of woodland, through the gate and into the Conways’ back garden, there to see Charlie outside the shed pumping up a tyre of his bicycle.

  She stopped a moment, then walked towards him. He had seen her as soon as she came through the gate; nevertheless, he only slowly straightened his back, yet it was he who spoke first. ‘So you’re back,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I’m back. Had a puncture?’

  ‘Something like that. What kind of a time did you have?’

  ‘Oh’—her face stretched a little but she didn’t smile—‘it was very pleasant. The hotel was fine, everybody was very nice.’

  ‘Well then, everything in the garden’s lovely.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘What d’you mean, what’s the matter with me?’

  ‘Well, the way you’re acting. And you never came…to the wedding last Saturday. Your mother said you had a cold, but you hadn’t, had you?’

  ‘No; I hadn’t.’ He was holding the extended bicycle pump and he now thrust it closed as he said grimly, ‘Why had you to go and marry him?’ And before she could reply he went on, ‘Oh, I know. My mam told me, respectability and an illegitimate child, bastard, and all that, and the stigma on you, nobody would want you after that.’

  She didn’t actually move back from him but she pressed her shoulders and head away from this different individual, this different Charlie, who had been easygoing, kindly, very often inarticulate. Moreover she was amazed his mother could talk to him about such things. But then her Auntie May was very open, different. She watched him now turn about and, bending, place the bicycle pump in its frame on the back of the bicycle. And she recognised the old Charlie when he turned back to her and said quietly, ‘I would have married you, you know that, like a shot; you only had to wait.’

  ‘Oh Charlie; we’ve been like brother and sister.’

  ‘Well, we’re not brother and sister, are we?’ There was that aggressive note back in his voice. ‘And you know damn well we haven’t been like brother and sister. Yes, you do!’

  He was swearing! She’d never before heard him use a swear word. Other boys, yes. Andrew, yes: he had used bloody when he was talking about his headmaster and what he had said to him when he left school; he had called him a bloody narrow-minded prig.

  ‘Anyway, you’re now Missis Jones. It’s a very common name, you could be Missis anybody.’

  ‘Peggy!’

  At the sound of her mother’s voice she turned quickly, and, as if escaping from Charlie, she ran towards her and fell into her arms. And Lizzie said, ‘I never expected you back so soon. How are you?’

  ‘Fine, Mam. Fine.’

  Lizzie held her daughter at arm’s length now, saying, ‘You look it. You look better than you did a week ago. Where…where is he?’

  ‘Talking to Gran and Great-gran.’

  ‘You’ve left him alone with them?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ She grinned at her mother. ‘He was getting on like a house on fire, giving them a vivid description of the place we’ve been staying in for the past week.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Lizzie’s face had broken into a smile, which disappeared as she added, ‘What’s the matter with Charlie? He’s ridden off without a word.’

  Peggy did not immediately answer but linked her arm in her mother’s and began to walk her down the path towards the gate; then she said, ‘He was a bit short with me.’ She did not say ‘angry’ or ‘rude’ or why he was short; but when her mother said, ‘Well, he would be, wouldn’t he?’ she answered, ‘But we were like brother and sister.’

  ‘Don’t be silly! You weren’t. I’m sure he’s had ideas about you in that way since he first started to think of girls.’

  The bloom of the day faded. If she had waited and she had married Charlie, would she have been happy? The answer she gave herself frightened her; and when she shivered, Lizzie said, ‘You’re cold. Of course, you’ll be finding it a bit different here from Harrogate. Come on; let me meet the married Mr Jones.’

  As they entered the house Peggy pulled her mother to a halt and asked her quietly, ‘When does Father come back?’

  ‘I don’t know, dear. I haven’t had any word from him, and I don’t know where he is. So he can’t blame me for not telling him that Mr Cartwright took ill last Thursday and is in hospital and that there could soon be a shake-up all round at the Works.’

  Eight

  Leonard Hammond returned home the following Friday night. He had stayed away for the full fortnight. Everyone in the house knew he had returned when the front door banged and the study door banged, then the bedroom door banged.

  Emma Funnell was in the sitting room; she had just returned from a visit to a friend and afternoon tea. She had heard the three doors
bang and with each she had settled herself further back into her chair; but she hadn’t stopped reading the paper, only paused for a moment with each bang and looked in the direction of the drawing-room door.

  Lizzie was in the kitchen with her mother, and she said quietly, ‘You’d better lay his place.’

  Victoria Pollock’s reply to this was to sit down in a chair, put her hand to the top of her chest and say, ‘Oh, dear, dear, I felt it coming on all day. It’s the hernia. It must have been that cheese I had at lunch. I shouldn’t have cheese, Lizzie. Look; give me one of my pills, the indigestion ones.’

  Lizzie went to the delph rack and from a row of small bottles took one with blue pills in it. She extracted a pill, filled a cup half full with milk, then took it to her mother. And she didn’t say a word. There had been no talk of hiatus hernia, stomach trouble, migraine, or phlebitis, for the past two weeks. It was true she had phlebitis, but the migraine, hiatus hernia and stomach trouble seemed to be born separately or altogether on different bouts of friction.

  As she was going out of the kitchen her mother said, ‘Where are you going, Lizzie?’

  ‘Just to see if he’s enjoyed himself.’

  ‘That’ll be the day. Oh yes, that’ll be the day.’

  As she went up the stairs Lizzie repeated to herself, Yes, that’ll be the day. But one never knows.

  She did know, however, as soon as she opened the bedroom door. He was changing his shirt and as his head came through the neck of it he looked for a moment like a jack-in-the-box, except that there was no pleasant grin on his face.

  ‘Had a nice time?’

  ‘Yes; yes, I’ve had a nice time.’

  She watched him now tugging at his collar, trying to button it. ‘I’ll have to have new shirts,’ he said; ‘they’re shrinking in the wash, boiled to bits.’

  ‘It couldn’t be that you’re putting on weight?’

  ‘I’ve never put on weight.’ He looked at her over his shoulder now as he bent down towards the dressing-table mirror.