A Woman's Place (40 page)

‘We ought to see my parents as well, at least once,’ Eveline said. This seemed only fair, what with her brother Len at home trying to cope with his false leg and hoping to marry Flossie come September, and May still at home too, twenty-three and apparently unable to settle to any steady boy. Nor could they leave out Gran, who’d done so much for her where her mother had done so little.

His seven days’ leave wasn’t even a full week with her; his first day had been taken up getting home, and the last day would be spent getting back, so it was really five days. She almost envied Connie not having relatives to visit – they could spend their whole time together.

They did have an evening or two to themselves, one going off to the pictures to hold hands like lovers as they watched a comedy and then a cowboy film on the flickering, silent screen, while his mother gave eye to little Helena. ‘You two need ter be on yer own fer a while,’ she’d said.

A second evening was the highlight of the week – seats in the gods to see the musical show
Chu Chin Chow
at His Majesty’s Theatre that even after a year was still so popular it was hard to get seats at all.

Albert’s mother again looking after Helena, they’d gone to join the snaking queue of waiting hopefuls, lining up for ages in the cold drizzle, and were very lucky to get in. The doorman, taking pity on a half-drenched woman with her uniformed husband also looking haggard enough to have recently come from the front, had ever so slightly lifted the hand he was about to bring down, allowing them to duck underneath.

While the rest of the queue had been turned away to try another evening, they’d run up the several flights of stone stairs to the gods to be found a couple of seats, some people even moving along to allow them to sit together.

The changing colour of scenery, the oriental costumes, the wonderful songs, ‘The Cobbler’s Song’ and ‘I’m Chu Chin Chow From China’, the exciting music, Albert sitting beside her with the box of chocolates they’d bought for the occasion, his warmth against her: it all made for an evening she knew she would never forget.

The only thing that worried her was Albert waking suddenly at night with a shout that made her blood run cold. Asked what was wrong, he’d say, ‘Nothing, just a bloody daft dream, go back ter sleep,’ so fiercely that she dared not pry further. It was all she could get out of him, but it worried her.

Their last evening was spent with Connie and George, as felt only right. Hurrying back home to bed, with Helena tucked up and sound asleep, they made love so fondly, as they’d done every night, she was sure she’d find herself pregnant in a few weeks’ time and prayed it would be so.

Too soon leave was over. She and Connie went together to see them off, the two men the best of pals. Saying goodbye, trying to be brave, biting back the tears, she said her goodbyes with a smile as best she could. All the tears in the world couldn’t stop the march of time and she could only pray Albert would remain safe and well and come back soon. Connie, though, was in floods and she wondered if Albert would have sooner seen her in the same state, but she knew he understood that it would have made it harder. She would shed her tears when she got home. There, in private, she would cry her heart out.

Together they waved their menfolk off at Paddington Station, waving frantically as their heads poking from the carriage window got smaller and smaller, the train puffing out of the station to finally disappear from view.

Being together had helped take off some of the sharp pain of saying goodbye, but returning home each felt alone, quiet and thoughtful and sad. In time they’d become used to their loneliness again, be able to laugh as they went off to work, but for the present each kept this reawakened sense of loneliness to herself.

Eveline felt her prayers had been answered. Albert’s next letter said he and George had indeed been sent to a training camp for a spell. She missed him dreadfully but she could at last sleep contented, though for how long?

Connie was so full of relief about her husband that Eveline saw tears sparkle in her eyes as she read out that part of her letter. ‘Perhaps they’ll be there until the war is over,’ she sniffed bravely. ‘It can’t be too long, now that America is in the war.’

The United States President Woodrow Wilson had signed his country’s declaration of war while their husbands had been home on leave and it had been a tremendous bit of news then.

‘It’s such a huge country,’ she gabbled on hopefully. ‘With so many thousands more men we’re bound to win soon. Oh, I do so hope it’ll be over before long, before anything awful should happen to George, and your Albert too.’

Her emotions getting the better of her, she finally indulged herself in a little weep, leaving Eveline trying hard to conceal her impatience.

Connie cried far too easily, she thought, but she couldn’t condemn her for shedding more tears a month later when Verity’s letter came by late post bearing the terrible news that their brother Herbert had died of wounds.

‘Both my brothers. Both gone. My parents, whatever must they be feeling, both of their sons lost to them? Oh, this terrible, terrible war.’

She seemed less concerned for her own sense of loss than for that of her mother and father, and Eveline, not knowing what sort of comfort she was expected to offer, could only think of the oddity of the wealthy in that siblings were probably never close enough to feel a loss the way she’d have felt it had it been one of her brothers. She could be wrong but was it that they were used to separation, sent away as the boys were to public schools at an early age?

She thanked God that Len losing his leg had taken him out of the war, and that her other brother Fred, called up this year, and her sister Tilly’s husband, also called up, were both still safe in England.

‘I’ve decided I shall go and visit my parents,’ Connie said as she recovered her composure.

‘I wouldn’t,’ Eveline advised. ‘You know the reception you got last time. Perhaps you should just write and say how upset you are. If they don’t reply, well, at least you wrote.’

Connie had to agree, but after they got home from work, she was back knocking on Eveline’s door, this time dry-eyed. She held a telegram. ‘It’s from Verity. My father had another heart attack after the news of my brother. He died in the early hours of this morning.’

It was said in such a flat tone that Eveline could hardly believe she was speaking of her father. But it was for her mother that Connie seemed most concerned.

‘She must be utterly devastated. She was devoted to him. They had never been apart in all their married life. How will she survive, her sons and now him? I must go to the funeral. I’ll get the arrangements from Verity.’

She seemed so calm, so unlike her, that Eveline was worried for her.

‘Would you like me to come with you?’ she asked. Connie shook her head, her thoughts seeming to be elsewhere, but Eveline persisted, ‘What if you get the same sort of reception you’ve had at other times? You might need someone to be there with you.’

Again she shook her head. ‘Verity will be there. She will stay by me.’

‘She’s closer to your mum than you are and she might not be of any comfort. I really ought to be there with you, Connie.’

This time Connie put up no objection, merely nodding absently.

When Verity’s next letter came giving Thursday as the day of the funeral, together with time and place, Eveline hurried over to her mother-in-law to see if she would take care of Helena overnight, hoping Gran might do the same for Connie. To her surprise, Albert’s mum without hesitation offered to take both.

‘I raised two blooming boisterous boys,’ she said firmly. ‘If I can’t look after two little well-behaved seven-year-old girls fer one night, I’m a blooming monkey’s uncle! Of course I’ll ’ave ’em.’

‘But two’s more trouble than one,’ Eveline said, relieved even so.

‘They don’t ’ave ter be. Now don’t yer worry, Ev love, they’ll be orright with me. They can both go in Albert’s old bed with no trouble.’

She and Connie left early that Thursday morning. Having informed their employers the day before that there was a family bereavement, no questions were asked. Bereavements had become a frequent occurrence with thousands of men being slaughtered daily.

Eveline hadn’t anticipated the shock of witnessing a mother and daughter divided. Somehow it seemed far worse than when she had been divided from her own mother over Helena. At least the rift had healed even if Mum would never alter from the cool-natured woman she’d always been.

Meeting Verity for the first time she was surprised to see how like Connie she looked, a friendly, likeable, approachable girl with no side to her. Their mother, whom they both took after in looks and carriage, was another matter entirely. She kissed Verity warmly but the sight of Connie had her moving back, cold and distant, almost as though she didn’t see her.

Not once throughout the entire funeral service did she speak to her, Connie taking the hint and standing on the far side of the grave among the friends and colleagues of her father as the coffin was slowly lowered.

Eveline could not see whether the woman wept or not for the dense black veil over her gaunt face, but she held herself erect the whole time, for which Eveline found herself admiring her. She started to see how she could have held herself so aloof from her daughter for so long.

She felt Connie, standing with an arm through hers, give a small tremble and heard a stifled sob. Immediately she firmed her grip on the arm. The sob ceased abruptly and it was Connie she now found herself admiring. Watching her father being lowered into his grave, not once in his life having offered words of forgiveness much less love, and her mother standing cold and aloof, well away from her, it had to be a terrible ordeal for any girl to endure. But worse would come.

With her arm still through Eveline’s, she moved in the wake of her mother and sister, all that were left of her family, towards the smart funeral limousine taking them back to the large and lonely house.

They were three feet from the vehicle when Connie’s mother stepped in front of them, barring her daughter’s path.

‘You have paid your respects to your father,’ she said curtly with not a tremble to her tone. ‘Now I ask you to go home. It is a pity you could not show your respect to him whilst he was alive.’

Eveline could hardly believe what she’d heard uttered. Connie seemed shocked into silence for a moment or two, but finally found her voice.

‘It was he who asked me to leave my home. And it was both he and you who refused to see me again. I had every respect for Father, except …’

‘Except that you preferred to go against his wishes.’

‘I was in love with George. I couldn’t …’

‘You chose your life, Constance, chose to throw your father’s concern for your future back into his face. Now you seek to ingratiate yourself with me through your poor father’s death. Well, Constance, I think not.’

In all this, the woman had held herself rigid and calm. Now suddenly, she seemed to crumple. She lifted her veil to stare into her daughter’s face and Eveline saw the fine features twist. The eyes, lit by a gleam of almost insane fury, almost made her step back. But it was the words hissing from that twisted, unforgiving mouth that stunned her.

‘Why is your husband still alive when both my sons are dead, my daughter’s husband dead, my own husband dead?’

‘Mother!’ The cry ripped itself from Connie’s lips.

‘That rogue you call your husband, why should he live when all the men in my family are gone?’ Her eyes burned and glittered with animosity. ‘Why are you still living – the one person I shall never grieve for?’

Eveline heard Connie gasp, saw her body begin to fail. She caught her before she could slip to the ground, but Connie’s mother had already turned on her heel and was getting into the limousine. Verity, helping her, looked back at her sister, her eyes beseeching.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered quickly over her shoulder. ‘I’m so very sorry, Connie.’

Clambering in beside her mother she closed the door, the limousine moving off slowly.

Eveline sat at ease on a wooden packing case, Connie next to her, eating their lunchtime sandwiches.

Beside her, Connie had her head buried in a newspaper she’d just bought from a vendor outside the factory gate. She had recovered pretty well from the deaths of her brother and father though she never mentioned them or her mother in any conversation and Eveline felt it best to let sleeping dogs lie.

She ate slowly to make it seem more than it was. A frugal lunch had become a necessity these days with food shortages biting hard – patriotically she’d cut the bread thin, with a sliver of cheese plus a bit of pickle, and a flask of tea; it was hardly filling. Cake was becoming a thing of the past, even home-made cake, with flour in short supply. Indeed, with German submarines attacking merchant ships – more than a hundred sunk last month alone – everything was in short supply. It was even a job to get a pound of potatoes and everywhere shops and stalls had signs proclaiming no this, no that, so that most of her time after work was taken up trying to find provisions, even with the rationing.

With her back against the warm brick wall of the factory, she closed her eyes against the glare of the June sunshine, its heat on her face making her think of seeking shade. But most of her more sensible fellow workers had already taken up what shade there was.

It was so hot. Inside was unbearable but even out here there was little breeze to temper this heatwave: ninety-three degrees, the newspapers were quoting.

Suddenly Connie looked up, pushing the newspaper at her.

‘Eveline, look, just there!’ She pointed to the column she had been reading. ‘It says that the Commons have voted by a three hundred and thirty majority to give the vote to married women over thirty. To think, after all this time.’

Eveline took the paper and scanned it. ‘Married women over thirty,’ she echoed. ‘It won’t include us. Me twenty-six and you twenty-seven.’

‘But we will eventually be able to vote. It’s a start. Wonderful news. After all our struggles, it takes a simple war to give the vote to women.’