The Carpenter's Children (9 page)

‘Anybody who saw us coming into an empty church will have seen our chaperone, too.’

‘Oh, Mark! Does this mean that she’ll come with us everywhere?’

‘No, my love, not everywhere, only in the church if there’s no service on, and certainly in the vicarage. Don’t be hard on her, Isabel, I care about your reputation, too, and I don’t want you talked about!’

Isabel nodded and said that she understood, but privately she felt that Mrs Clements combined admiration of the Rev. Mr Storey with a suspicion, even a vague disapproval, of this chit of a girl who was so obviously after him.

So the sooner they were married, the better.

‘Grace seems to have found her niche at Stepaside,’ remarked Tom Munday.

‘Yes, for the time being – I mean, while she’s so young,’ replied his wife who had opposed the idea of Grace leaving school early to get work as a waitress, no matter how genteel the place. At least it wasn’t in North Camp where every move would be watched.

‘She’s got a good woman to teach her and keep an eye on her there, Vi, that’s what I’m pleased about.’

‘Mrs Brangton? Yes, and Miss Brangton, too – it sounds as if they both like her,’ said Violet. ‘It’ll be good training for her.’

‘In more ways than one,’ replied Tom. ‘You can see that it suits her, by the way she dresses and behaves – she’s a changed girl. I said it would do her good.’

‘Let’s just hope it continues,’ said his wife with a sniff. She hadn’t much liked being overridden, and didn’t want to show too much enthusiasm. It was bad enough for Isabel to go gallivanting off to London for a weekend with that curate, for so Mrs Munday still regarded Mr Storey. Thank heaven for Ernest, doing so well at Schelling and Pascoe, and content to live at home, though she knew that Tom vaguely disapproved, instead of being thankful for a good, hard-working, home-loving son.

As for Grace, the episode with Mrs
Bentley-Foulkes
still rankled, and she had begun to feel a little bored with the refinement of Stepaside, the
rarefied atmosphere of high-class tea rooms presided over by a lady of quality who swanned among her guests, just as if she had not been cake-making all the morning. Grace liked earning a small wage of her own, and she told herself that it didn’t cost anything to bow and scrape, but Stepaside was not the only place to eat in Everham. The Railway Hotel did brisk business with the dinner trade or, as it was beginning to be called,
lunch
, served from midday to businessmen, commercial travellers and representatives of firms – and more recently, the military and naval personnel travelling between London and Southampton. These clients needed more than soup and little bits and pieces on toast, and when Grace heard roars of male laughter from the hotel restaurant, her curiosity was aroused; she wondered how much could be earned by a waitress serving steak-and-kidney pies and mutton chops to its patrons – men who would give her a second look and might even exchange pleasantries with her, not to mention the tips pressed into her hand. There was only one way to find out: by going to see the manager as soon as she left Stepaside at closing time, even if it meant missing her bus.

With a thumping heart she entered the Railway Hotel by the front door which opened into a narrow lobby. A middle-aged man in shirtsleeves and smoking a cigarette stood talking to a younger man.

‘Mr Coggins won’t want to be disturbed at this time o’day,’ he told Grace when she asked if she might speak to the manager. ‘What’s it about?’

Grace knew that a firm approach would be preferable to the shyness she felt.

‘I’m enquiring about any vacancies for staff to serve lunches,’ she said boldly.

‘We don’t need no extra kitchen staff,’ the man replied with a discouraging shake of his head, and for a moment Grace’s hopes were dashed. She was not going to be put off by this man, however.

‘Well, perhaps my name could be put down as a possible future waitress,’ she volunteered, raising her voice, and at that moment Mr Coggins called from his office.

‘Who is it, Tubby?’

‘Only a slip of a girl askin’ about a job servin’ lunches,’ the man called back.

‘How old?’

‘I’m sixteen, sir!’ cried Grace, adding a year to her age.

‘Fetch her in, Tubby, and let’s have a look.’

Grace didn’t need Tubby to fetch her anywhere, but stepped smartly to the half-open door where Mr Coggins sat at a desk, a glass at his elbow. He looked her up and down.

‘We’ve only just taken on that lad from the Union, CC,’ said Tubby irritably.

‘Yeah, but this is a girl. Any experience, missie?’ asked Mr Coggins.

‘Yes, sir, I’m at present employed by Mrs Brangton at Stepaside.’

‘Oho, so you know your manners. Well, I’m sorry, Miss…er, what was the name?’

‘Miss Munday, sir.’

‘Sorry, Miss Munday, but I don’t need any new staff right now.’

‘But Mr Coggins—’

‘Right, you ’eard what Mr Coggins said, so off yer go,’ said Tubby nastily, but Mr Coggins held up his hand.

‘Wait a minute, there might be a job for her later on, Tubby, and not so far off, neither,’ he said in a low tone but perfectly audible to Grace.

‘’Ow’d yer make that out, CC?’

‘We could get a lot busier if there’s any, er, trouble,’ said Mr Coggins cryptically. ‘All right, Miss Munday, you can go back to your posh Mrs Brangton, and I’ll know where you are if I need more staff, right?’

To which Grace could only smile, nod and say politely, ‘Thank you very much, Mr Coggins. Good evening.’

And ignoring Tubby, she walked out of the Railway Hotel with her head held as high as if she had not received a disappointment.

It was Saturday, the first in July. Aaron and his uncle had taken the train to London, to observe the Sabbath at their family’s synagogue, and Ernest was in charge of the office, with a new girl at the typewriter. Windows were open to let in what breeze there was, and there was very little business: a couple of inquiries about farm and shop insurance, and a client paying his premium in cash, coins carefully saved in a money box; there being no bank in North Camp other than the post office, the firm was used to dealing with cash payments delivered by hand. Ernest had time, therefore, to indulge his secret passion undisturbed except for the occasional ping of the doorbell.

He opened his exercise book of blank lined pages, and dipped his pen in the inkpot. His head was full of images, and as he tried to capture them on paper, they turned themselves into sentences, and fresh pictures came to his mind. He wrote of
eternal sounds of summer
and
the silent tread of dusk upon these hills
. The landscape that he loved was his subject, and he saw himself as a rural poet in the tradition of John Clare and Thomas Gray; but now a new theme was emerging, and whether he walked by ancient pathways through the woods or lingered
beside a familiar stream, he found that his lines were leading in a direction he had not planned, yet which seemed so right and natural.

Beneath the deep, dark shadow of the yew, you lie with limbs outstretched,
he wrote, and
In softly shifting clouds a face appears to me and me alone
.

In blaze of noon, in coolness after rain, your steps return again, and yet again.

Again, again, again
. Ernest’s half-formed sentences took shape as four-lined verses with a rhyming couplet at the end of each, a refrain, a moment shared and recalled:
And each fair vista speaks to me of you
. He crossed out
you
and wrote
thee
. His pen flew across the pages, writing a poem. A love poem.

Ernest put down his pen and closed his eyes, for these innocent verses revealed to him that at twenty his restless heart had found a focus. He smiled. Undeclared and unreturned his love might be, yet it filled his heart and life, raising him up to walk with kings and gods.

‘Ernest, old chap! There’s a rare crop of rumours going around London about this business in Sarajevo!’

‘Where?’ Ernest was taken off guard by Aaron’s sudden appearance in the office, shortly before it was due to close.

‘Sarajevo, it’s in Serbia – this unfortunate Archduke Franz Ferdinand!’

‘Who?’

‘You know, the one who was shot dead in the street last Sunday – they’re saying that it’ll trigger off the most enormous political explosion – it could even lead to war!’

‘But
why
?’ asked Ernest in bewilderment. ‘What has this man’s murder got to do with
us
, Aaron?’

And in all the time that lay ahead, Ernest never found a satisfactory answer to his question.

Nobody could remember a more glorious summer. Front and back doors stood open, and everybody wanted to be outside; as soon as the children came out of school, they ran off to play on the common or down by the Blackwater which was so low that even children could wade across it, and punts that drifted too near the banks got stuck in the mud. Cricket pitches and tennis courts echoed to the sound of bat and racquet against ball, and the cheers that rose from the onlookers sitting in the shade. It was a time of sunbathing and swimming, picnics and trips to the seaside.

Yet a shadow was gathering over Europe, and the talk in the Tradesmen’s Arms echoed its menace.

‘What d’you make of it, Eddie?’ asked Tom Munday. ‘They’re holding a special service in St
Peter’s on Sunday, to pray for peace – that things’ll settle down and the old kaiser’ll stop banging the drums o’ war.’

‘I can’t see it coming to anything, myself,’ replied Cooper. ‘Don’t know what it’s got to do with us, anyway.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ said Tom, frowning. ‘Ernest’s friend Aaron Pascoe is doing his best to persuade his parents to leave Germany and come over here. His father’s English, but the mother’s German, a sister of old Mr Schelling that Ernest works for. They’ve got a very nice place out there, and I don’t suppose they fancy leaving it all and coming to live with her Jewish relatives in London.’

‘You can hardly blame them! Why does their son want them to?’

‘Ernest says that if there was a war, they’d be on the wrong side, wouldn’t they? That’s reason enough!’

‘Get away with you, Tom, things aren’t that bad. And your Ernest always was a worrier!’ Eddie smiled as he drained his glass. ‘Havin’ another?’

‘No, thanks. And don’t be so sure. The British Regular Army’s being mobilised, and young Cedric Neville has gone to join his unit in the Territorials. Before we know where we are, they’ll be calling up the young, single men – and that could mean Ernest and young Pascoe. It’s all right for you, Eddie, your little lad’s only a tiddler.’

Eddie thought a change of subject was called for.
‘How’s that daughter o’ yours getting on? The one that’s moving to London to be near her curate?’

‘Storey’s a vicar now, with his own church, and they’re both determined to be married, whatever his bishop says,’ answered Tom with a half-smile, for he sympathised with the couple. ‘He’s coming to stay a couple o’ days with us next week, and I won’t be saying no to them, Eddie. Violet’s against it, of course, and says Isabel’s much too young. I think she’s worried that the girl could have a couple o’ kids before she’s twenty-one – before she’s had any life of her own. But if it’s what they want, God knows they’ve waited long enough, and I won’t stand in their way.’

Eddie nodded. ‘I think you’re right, Tom. If my Mary had the chance of a decent man like him, I’d give ’em my blessing, though so far she’s been happy enough with the Yeomanses, in fact they’re more like parents to her than I am.’

‘I’ll tell you what, Eddie, I’d be a jolly sight more worried about my Grace if she hadn’t got this nice little job at Mrs Brangton’s, a sensible woman who keeps an eye on her. You never saw such a change in a girl, and it’s a big relief to her mother and me, I can tell you!’

While the threat of war drew closer, Grace Munday had never had so much fun in her life as now. When Mr Coggins’s summons came to her at Stepaside, she at once pulled off her frilly apron and
cap, and tossed them into Mrs Brangton’s office.

‘Sorry, Mrs B, but I’ve got better things to do!’ she called out happily. ‘Say good-bye to Mrs
Bentley-Foulkes
for me!’ And she literally ran all the way from the high-class tea rooms to the Railway Hotel, where her expectations were fully justified. On every hand there were smiles and complimentary words for the pretty young girl tripping daintily between the tables crowded with officers off to their regiments, sailors going to rejoin their ships, and men on their way to enlist. The fact that she did not report her change of employer to her parents was simply to avoid an unnecessary rumpus, and she intended to wait for an opportune moment. A spirit of adventure filled the air, and Grace soon learnt that a large number of the Railway Hotel’s new clientele was actually hoping for war and the chance to play their part in it.

Neither Ernest Munday nor Aaron Pascoe felt any desire to respond to all the excited talk of a call to arms. Aaron’s fears for his parents and their younger children in Elberfeld had dominated every other issue, and having discussed the matter with his uncle, the whole Schelling family, supported by their rabbi in London, had brought all their influence to bear on Aaron’s father, Victor Pascoe, to persuade him to bring his family over to England and settle with the strong second-generation Jewish community in Tamarind Street, Whitechapel.

‘My mother’s very reluctant to leave the home they have in Elberfeld and cram themselves in with her London relations,’ Aaron told Ernest, ‘but with the situation as it is now in Germany, my father had no choice but to insist. They’re arriving sometime next week, and my uncle’s giving me time off to meet them at Southampton and then travel with them to Tamarind Street. I shall be so thankful to see them safely installed with my Schelling grandparents.’

‘And I’ll be thankful to know your mind’s at rest,’ Ernest answered fervently, for his friend’s strained and anxious eyes troubled him. ‘Just so long as you don’t decide to stay in London with them!’

Aaron laughed briefly. ‘No fear of that, they’re much too ambitious for me to take over Schelling and Pascoe at some future time! Come on, Ernest, let’s go and have lunch at the Railway Hotel today, and see what news we can pick up at first hand. I’m tired of newspaper conjecture, and if men are enlisting at the rate the papers say, I’d like to meet a few of them and hear what they’re saying.’

‘Yes, ask them if they really want to go abroad to fight and kill other young fellows like themselves,’ said Ernest with a shiver. ‘Leaving home, parents, families, friends, everything they hold dear.’

‘But it’s to defend those very things, old chap, don’t you see, that’s what’s firing them all to join up – come on, let’s go and see what we can find out!’

On entering the restaurant, the first thing Ernest
saw was his sister Grace serving at the tables, and she saw him. She came straight over.

‘I’m going to tell Dad today, Ernest, really I am,’ she pleaded. ‘Mr Coggins, he’s the manager, simply
begged
me to come in and give a hand, they’ve got that busy! I can be so much more
useful
here than in that other silly little…that quiet little place.’

She glanced at Aaron, and saw him smiling at her brother’s discomfiture. ‘Honestly, Mr Pascoe, I have to work
much
harder here, and Ernest knows how tired I am when I get home from work,’ she said with a beguiling look. ‘Please, you
must
ask him to keep it to himself for the time being – our parents are so dreadfully strict!’

Ernest regarded her gravely. ‘I won’t tell on you, Grace,’ he began, but cut short her smiles as she clasped her hands together in gratitude. ‘I’ll give you the opportunity to tell them yourself. This evening. Yes, Grace, they’ll be hurt because you should have told them earlier, but if you tell them that you’re sincerely sorry, I’ll put in a good word for you.’

Grace’s smile faded, to be replaced by penitence. ‘All right, Ernest, as long as you let me tell them myself first, and I’ll say how very, very sorry I am.’ She turned to Aaron with a wink that her brother could not see. ‘And now, gentlemen, may I take your order?’

When she reached home that evening, artful Grace did not confess immediately to her mother, who she knew would be shocked and furious, but waited until her father came in, hot and tired after a day spent building a new chicken house at Yeomans’ farm. Grace waited until he had finished his supper, then gently tugged at his sleeve and, looking up demurely, whispered, ‘Will you come out in the garden, Daddy? I want to tell you something.’

Tom was at once alerted by being called
Daddy
instead of
Dad
, and her air of a worried little girl expecting blame. He gave her a reassuring smile as they went outside, thinking there may have been some trouble with a customer at Stepaside. But when he understood that Grace had been working for the last two weeks at the Railway Hotel without mentioning the fact, let alone asking her parents’ permission, he was truly stunned, and she saw that she was not going to get off lightly.

‘It was worrying me, Daddy, because I
knew
I ought to tell you and Mum, but the longer I left it the harder it got – and then today I knew I couldn’t go on deceiving you any longer.’ She burst into tears.

‘Well, I must give you credit for owning up at last, Grace, though your mother will be very upset about the way you’ve deceived us.’

‘I know, Daddy, I know, and I’m so very, very sorry!’ she sobbed, tears pouring down her cheeks. ‘Will you tell her for me, Daddy?’

‘No, Grace, you’ll have to tell her yourself, and I hope you’ll feel thoroughly ashamed for causing her such a shock. I’ll have a word with her afterwards, but you must go indoors
now
, this very minute, and ask her to come to the parlour with you, to tell her privately.’

Violet Munday was indeed horrified, not least because all their North Camp neighbours had been told of Grace’s favoured position at Stepaside; heaven only knew what they would say about the Railway Hotel, if they didn’t know already, and how they would laugh! Yet after a long talk between herself and Tom that night, it was decided that Grace might as well continue to work for Mr Coggins, seeing that she seemed to be settled there, and there being no chance of her returning to Stepaside. Violet had no choice but to agree, but she felt hemmed in by trouble on all sides: the Reverend Mark Storey was coming to stay for two days, from the Tuesday until the Thursday of the last week in July, and he had made it quite clear that his purpose was to discuss his marriage to their daughter Isabel.

‘He’s not sleeping
here
, not under
this
roof!’ declared Violet. ‘It would be most improper, and heaven knows what people would say.’

Tom did not attempt to override, for he felt sure that the young clergyman would be more at ease sleeping at another house, away from Mrs Munday’s cold disapproval.

‘There are plenty o’ kind-hearted people in North Camp who’ll be glad to put him up for a couple o’ nights, and I’ll write to tell him we haven’t got a spare room,’ he answered, even though Ernest had volunteered to give up his own room to Mark and stay with the Schellings, where the anxiety over Aaron’s family was growing by the day, and Ernest was affected by it on his friend’s behalf.

But the Mundays were in for a surprise. At church that Sunday the Rev. Mr Saville stopped them as they filed out and said that he and his wife were looking forward to having Mark to stay with them.

‘He’ll be back in his old room, and we only wish that he could stay longer,’ he said. ‘The problem will be that so many of our parishioners will want to see him again and speak with him – and of course he will be otherwise
engaged
, won’t he?’ He smiled at his own little pun.

Isabel was delighted and Violet astonished by this change of attitude since the banishment of the lovesick curate. It gave North Camp a clear message that Mr Storey had earned his right to marry pretty, popular Miss Munday, and that a local wedding was in the offing. It was also a signal to Violet Munday that she too would need to change her viewpoint and look kindly on her future son-in-law; it was much better to receive congratulations than condolences.

So Mark received a very cordial welcome when Isabel led him into the front parlour to meet her parents,
who were at once impressed by his older appearance and confident air. There’s a man who’s chosen his path in life and is following it, thought Tom Munday, giving him a warm handshake, and Violet graciously offered him her hand. When Ernest and Grace arrived home from their places of work in Everham, they too greeted him with undisguised pleasure, and when Mrs Munday and Isabel announced that dinner was ready, the whole family sat down to a roast leg of mutton with vegetables from the garden, and Mark said grace on behalf of them all.

The conversation flowed fairly easily at first, and Tom admired Mark’s enthusiasm for his work, the genuine concern he felt for his parishioners, churchgoers and non-churchgoers alike.

‘Mr and Mrs Clements send their love to you, Isabel, and asked me to say that you’ll always be welcome in their house,’ he said, for Isabel had entirely won over Mr Clements and almost won over his wife during her recent short stay.

‘I shan’t need their hospitality for much longer, will I, Mark?’ she said, looking up at him with shining eyes, then turning to her parents, she told them of their proposed plans.

‘We shall be married here at St Peter’s, and Mark and I want it to be a quiet wedding,’ she said. ‘And we think that the middle of October would be a good time, so that I shall be there to help Mark at Christmas.’

There was a gasp, and the Mundays looked at each other in shocked surprise.

‘
October?
’ Violet could not hide her dismay. ‘So soon? Don’t you think you should wait another year or two, until Isabel’s at least twenty, and…and all this talk of war is over?’ She glanced at her husband for his support, but Tom had already guessed his daughter’s intentions, and nodded at Mark to hear what he had to say.

‘I can understand how you feel, Mrs Munday,’ began Mark courteously, ‘and your views are shared by my own parents to some extent, but it’s partly
because
of the uncertainties of the times that Isabel and I want to make a firm commitment to each other
now
, rather than later. None of us know what the outcome will be, but the signs are not hopeful, and—’

‘Mark and I know each other’s minds, and we’ve waited long enough,’ cut in Isabel, her voice firm and clear. ‘And until our wedding, I’m going to stay at the home of Mr and Mrs Clements—’