A Mother's Duty (26 page)

He stared at her with a sinking heart. ‘You’d be best getting out of that job, Cessy. I’m surprised the doctor hasn’t got her into the consumption hospital on the corner if she’s that bad.’

Some of the colour faded from the girl’s face. ‘I know what you’re thinking but you could be wrong. Sometimes people bring up blood through just straining. It doesn’t say it’s – it’s
that.
Anyway, I’ve told you, he’s going to take her away and I’m going with her.’

‘You’re mad,’ said Mick, worried. ‘If she was family I could understand your staying with her and taking a risk but she isn’t. Just think, Cessy, if you came to work for Ma we could see more of each other.’

‘I know that and it’d be lovely,’ said Celia. ‘But I’d be letting Miss Geraldine and the doctor down. He’s an awfully nice man, saying thank you for every little thing you do for him. He doesn’t deserve this to happen to him. The cook says he’s a gem of a master and it’s true.’

‘But what about us?’ said Mick, getting annoyed.

‘What about us?’ she said, smiling, as she went to fetch the shovel. ‘We can still go on seeing each other. I’ll still be here only a few minutes away.’

‘I know that, but …’ He frowned and kicked at the dust in the gutter, deeply disappointed.

‘Don’t do that!’ she said, brushing the dust off his shoe and onto the shovel with the rest.

‘Sorry! It’s just that I thought you’d want to come. To be with me above anyone else! But now it looks like you prefer the Galloways’ company to mine.’

‘That’s not what I said!’ Celia was startled by his vehemence because Mick was not one to get angry normally. ‘And will you keep your voice down. I don’t want them hearing you.’

‘Perhaps you’d rather I didn’t speak at all,’ he muttered, kicking the edge of the kerb.

‘Don’t be daft! It’s just that I’m working right now and the housekeeper could get funny if she caught me talking to you.’

‘I’ll go then.’ His voice was positively cross.

She started to feel annoyed with him. ‘You do that. Some of us have work to do. We can’t just come and go when we please because our ma’s the boss.’

Mick considered the time he had been awake that morning, taking up water and emptying chamber pots, and his annoyance got the better of him. ‘That’s a rotten thing to say and you know it! Ma keeps our noses to the grindstone!’

Celia knew that was true but she was not prepared to take back what she had said. Why couldn’t he see her side of things? Half of her wanted to accept his mother’s offer but half of her was touched by Miss Geraldine’s need of her.

‘Goodbye then,’ he said stiffly.

‘Goodbye.’ Celia did not look up as he walked away.
He’ll be back
, she thought.

Mick found Kitty hanging out of one of the front bedrooms, watering a window box filled with geraniums and French marigolds. ‘She doesn’t want the job,’ he shouted up to her.

‘She doesn’t!’ Kitty was surprised. ‘Why on earth not?’

‘She prefers Miss Geraldine and the doctor to us.’ There was a tiny choke in his voice and he disappeared quickly inside before his mother could start asking questions.

He found Teddy in the kitchen eating jam bread. ‘What’s the matter with your face?’ asked Teddy.

Mick was not going to say anything but suddenly all his anger and hurt came spurting out.

Teddy stared at him and then grinned. ‘You’re daft! What do you want to be getting all serious about Celia for? Girls take your money and you’ve got little enough as it is with still being at school.’

Mick was startled. He had not begrudged a penny he had spent on Celia because he had considered her company worth it, but now he realised just how true Teddy’s words were.

‘Forget her,’ said Teddy, biting into the slice of bread and jam. ‘And come rowing with us tomorrow.’

‘Rowing!’ exclaimed Mick. ‘I didn’t know you could row.’

Teddy looked slightly discomforted. ‘Our stepfather can. And Ma thinks it’d be nice for him to teach me. You never know. It just might come in useful one day.’

Mick forgot Celia for the moment. ‘I thought you didn’t like him.’

‘I don’t. But I’ve got to try and get on with him for Ma’s sake. He actually thanked me for spotting Hetty and her boyfriend and gave me a bob.’ He smiled at the memory.

‘Lucky you,’ said Mick. ‘D’you think he’ll mind me going rowing, as well?’

‘I don’t see why he should. I bet it’ll be lovely on the lake in Sefton Park.’

Mick imagined floating on cool refreshing water and his sore young heart was momentarily soothed.

‘What do you think all that was about?’ asked Kitty, turning to John who was oiling a squeaky wardrobe door in the room behind her.

John shook his head. ‘I’m surprised she turned it down.’

‘Me too. Perhaps she’s already cooling off.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry.’ John was silent. She stared at him. ‘What do you think about it?’

‘They’re young. They’ll fancy themselves in love time and again before they’re much older.’

‘Was it like that for you?’ She remembered how Michael had been the only sweetheart she’d had as a young girl, despite many a flirtation with milk and butcher boys who had called at the house in Crown Street.

‘I was a bit older than Mick when I started getting interested,’ he said as he put down the oil can. ‘My grandparents kept me on a tight rein. It wasn’t until I got to Edinburgh that I had the chance to take a girl out.’ He put an arm round Kitty. ‘Thinking about love and all that, how are you feeling?’ His voice was gruff.

She looked up at him in surprise. ‘About what in particular?’

‘About the other night.’ His anxious eyes gazed into hers. ‘I’m sorry, Kit.’

‘That’s OK.’ She rested her head against his chest. ‘It happened and there’s nothing we can do about it.’

‘It was a stupid thing to do.’

Kitty smiled. ‘There’s no use worrying about it. At the moment I’ve other things to think about. Summer’s not our busiest time but if we do get busy I can send the linen out to be laundered.’

‘It’s a pity Annie ever left,’ said John gloomily.

Kitty agreed but knew there was no chance of her cousin returning. She had written to say she had found a position in a small London hotel and was building a new life for herself. So for now, thought Kitty, they would have to manage with Hannah and the boys. If she was to have a child, of course, she would have to think again.

The day after Hannah took up her position as all-purpose maid, Ben sought Kitty out before school, obviously suffering from some great anxiety. ‘Ma, you won’t let Hannah clean our bedroom, will you?’

Kitty stared down at him. ‘Why not?’

‘She’ll find Twitchy and cut his tail off,’ he whispered.

Kitty suppressed a smile. ‘I’ll see to it, son. Don’t you worry.’

‘You’ll keep your eye on her?’

She agreed to keep her eye on her.

Kitty meant what she said but the joy of having Hannah working for her was that, unlike Hetty, there was no need to check that she was working. Despite complaining occasionally of rheumatic twinges, Hannah knew what she was about – although she had a strong will and a habit of saying exactly what she thought in a mixture of Quaker-style thees and thous and Scouse. This had been known to take the guests by surprise at times, as it often did Kitty.

The maid had not been in the hotel a fortnight when she said to Kitty’s face, ‘Thou needs someone like me around because thee’ll never save them lads elseways. The Lord sent me because he knows yer too soft with them.’

‘No, I’m not,’ protested Kitty, who was feeling low and weepy because her period had come.

The maid smiled in a grim knowing way and, picking up the cat, she limped out of the kitchen with it. ‘I’ll be up the stairs if thee wants me.’

Kitty turned to John who was eating a late breakfast. ‘I’m not soft with them,’ she said crossly.

‘You wanted her here,’ he said with a smile, dipping bread into an egg. ‘And I’m glad she is because you don’t have to work so hard – but what I’d dearly like to know is what she wants with the cat. She hates animals.’

Kitty gazed at him and then shot off after Hannah, catching up with her just as the maid was about to mount the stairs to the attics. ‘Not up there, Hannah!’

‘I’ve started so I’ll finish,’ said the maid, and lifting the wriggling, growling cat in her arms, she threw it up the stairs.

‘No!’ yelled Kitty and almost fell over her feet in a rush to beat the cat to the top. She threw herself forward, stretched out an arm and grabbed its tail. The cat’s head twisted and a rumble sounded in its throat. ‘Don’t you growl at me! You know you’re not allowed up here,’ she said crossly.

‘Yer’s daft talking to dumb creatures,’ said Hannah.

‘And you’re impertinent.’ Kitty came downstairs, clutching the cat. ‘And cruel. You know Ben loves that mouse.’

‘Mice is vermin. They’s dirty creatures.’

‘Twitchy’s a tame mouse and God created him just as much as He created you and me.’

Hannah sniffed, turning her back on Kitty, and limped along the landing, vanishing into one of the bedrooms. Kitty smiled, knowing she was the victor, and went downstairs, carrying the cat. She told John what had happened and he seemed to enjoy the tale, although he added, ‘She’s right, Kit. Mice are vermin and make dirt.’

‘I know that. But she goes to extremes.’

‘That’s due to her background. She grew up in filthy surroundings. Becky’s aunt told me. There’s enough diseases today without cures but it was worse when she was a girl. You don’t hear of many cases of cholera or of typhus but Hannah’ll remember some. Dirt is the enemy and anything that can spread it has to be destroyed.’ Almost without a pause he added, ‘I was talking to Dr Galloway the other day.’

‘About disease or Celia?’

Their eyes met and she could see that he was concerned. John hesitated. ‘As it happens both. We were discussing his daughter. She’s consumptive, Kit, and because I’m Celia’s godfather he asked me did I think he should ask her to leave.’

‘Oh, poor man,’ said Kitty, sitting down. ‘Is it terribly serious?’

‘It’s in the early stages and she’ll be starting treatment soon. But he wants to take her on holiday first to a cottage in Cornwall. All that clean air will be good for her but the problem is whether it’s good for Celia. The girl wants to go and he knows precautions need to be taken to protect her.’

‘Has he explained the situation to Celia?’

John nodded. ‘She knows she needs to wear a mask and how important it is to have a spittoon handy. He says she’s a sensible girl.’

‘What does her mother say?’

‘They don’t see much of each other and I doubt she’d be interested,’ he said grimly. ‘She’s taken up with some bloke, according to Celia, and is hardly ever in when the girl goes there.’

‘Then I wouldn’t interfere,’ said Kitty, torn between admiration for Celia’s courageous loyalty to the Galloways and relief that Mick was no longer seeing her.

‘You’re probably right,’ said John. ‘It would have created difficulties.’

Kitty could guess at what they might be. If he lost the girl her job he would feel honour bound to find her another. And however sorry she herself felt for Celia, she was unsure about the rightness of offering her a job at the Arcadia again. Consumption was infectious and so unpredictable. It could strike down the strong as well as the weak and kill rapidly. Yet she had known people to survive for years and some to be cured, but the last thing she felt able to do was to put guests, or her family, at risk. She only hoped that Mick had definitely got over what he felt for Celia and would not be tempted to see her again.

Mick’s heart was still sore when he thought of Celia but he had no intention of taking up with her again. He missed her but he filled up his hours outside of school as much as he could. When he had calmed down and thought logically about what Celia had said, it did not make him feel any better. Her actions were those of a considerate person but he had wanted her to consider him before the needs of her employer. It seemed a natural thing to expect if you believed someone was in love with you. He decided that she could not have been in love with him at all and perhaps what he had felt for her was calf love. He dismissed her from his mind if not his heart, and took interest in other things.

Summer had gone and the dingy leaves had fluttered down from the trees in the gardens and parks in the city, leaving the branches looking forlorn and naked. Choking fog concealed the river and the old buildings around Mount Pleasant took on the semblance of something out of a horror movie. Most Liverpudlians went about their business against the mournful background of fog horns on the Mersey but some were imprisoned in their homes not daring to go out because the fog was a killer for anyone with ‘a chest’. John was out though, and Kitty was worried.

She gripped the sink waiting for the dizziness to pass. Despite the pleasure she felt about her condition, she wondered how much longer she would be able to keep it from her husband. It was obvious to her that he was restless. He had suffered nightmares lately and there was also the matter of Teddy giving him cheek only a few days ago. The mood of optimism she had felt during the summer concerning Teddy’s and John’s relationship had vanished, only to be replaced by a moody pessimism. Things had got even worse since John had punished her son by not allowing him to go round to the engineering works. Instead Teddy had had to stay in the kitchen for a whole Saturday, peeling vegetables and washing dishes. It had not gone down well and now he did not speak to his stepfather if he could help it. Instead, he went round looking like he had a hobgoblin sitting on his shoulder all the time because Kitty was still insisting that he worked in the hotel when he left school, which would be any time now. She just hoped they’d all be able to dredge up some Christmas cheer from somewhere.

She tried to pull back her shoulders and lift her head, remembering there were others much worse off than her. Poor Dr Galloway was suffering. His daughter had wasted away from galloping consumption three weeks after she had returned from holiday. It had been such a shock and Kitty could scarcely bear thinking about what he must be going through.