All I Want Is You (2 page)

My mother hadn’t been well enough to climb the hill and watch the cavalry parade, but when my father and I got back she was sitting eagerly waiting for us outside our cottage door. It was a warm day in October, with some late roses still blooming in our small front garden, but I remember she was wrapped in a thick shawl. ‘How was it?’ she asked. ‘Did you see the soldiers, Sophie darling?’

I told her all about them. But my father, though he listened, didn’t say a word.

When I was twelve, my mother lost her job at the Hall, and because my father didn’t earn very much, she took in washing at home. I helped, because I’d left school by then, but my mother grew paler and was always coughing, though not when she thought I could hear her. As the months passed I became more and more afraid of her illness.

The war didn’t finish in months, as everyone had said it would, and one day the following spring, soon after my thirteenth birthday, my father told us he was leaving. ‘I’m going to join up,’ he announced. He said it as if he was proposing to do a little work in our small vegetable garden, or to take a stroll to the village alehouse. ‘They’re recruiting in Oxford. I’ll pack a few things and leave tonight.’

I remember that he held me tight and gave me a quick kiss on my forehead before leaving us. I never saw him again. My mother said nothing, did nothing; I wanted her to plead with him to stay. But her face was white, and she was shivering badly.

His going shook my world. I remember I made my mother some tea, but she didn’t want it. ‘Read to me, sweetheart,’ she whispered, so I did; I read her a story from
The Tales of King Arthur
, but grief was choking me because my father had gone – didn’t he love us? Didn’t he love
me
? I wondered if he knew about my mother kissing Lord Charlwood at the summer party years ago. How would we manage, without him?

‘Tomorrow, Sophie,’ whispered my mother, ‘we’ll go into Oxford, you and me. We’ll buy you some pretty things: some ribbons, perhaps, and some new lace-edged handkerchiefs.’

‘No, Mama,’ I pleaded. ‘You’re not well enough.’

A tight cough racked her body. She squeezed my hand. ‘Please, Sophie.’

The last time we’d gone into Oxford we’d seen a gypsy girl dancing for money while a man played wild, whirling music on his fiddle. I’d longed to dance as that girl did, with her full red skirts flying, and I hoped she’d be there again. But instead in the market square there was a man playing on a flute, and while my mother queued at a stall to buy some ribbons, I went to listen. Finding a sunny spot a little away from the flute player, I began to dance, and soon people were watching, I realised. Some of them were smiling, and a few even dropped coins by my feet. What the man playing the flute thought I don’t know, but I danced on to his tunes, humming under my breath and letting my feet lightly follow the rhythms.

Then I saw my mother, watching.

She was smiling proudly, but I was suddenly very frightened because she looked so ill. Her cheeks had red spots on them, her eyes I thought were feverish. I hurried to find her a bench to sit on, but though she was clearly struggling for breath, she sat only for a matter of minutes. ‘We must carry on with our shopping, Sophie,’ she said, putting her hand on my arm. ‘I want to buy you some more pretty things.’

She got to her feet, but almost immediately she collapsed to the ground. We were in the market place surrounded by crowds, and she lay quite still on the cobbles with her eyes closed. I called out to the people around me, ‘Please. Please help my mother.’ But no one
did. I crouched at her side, and I could see she’d coughed up some dark stuff, like blood; it had got onto her white cotton gloves, which she kept for best to cover her poor chapped hands.

The flute player had gone by then, but suddenly I could hear more music, the sound of a band, for some soldiers were marching through the town in their splendid uniforms, and everyone had gathered to watch. People were saying that the Duke himself was in Oxford as well, to welcome the troop’s officers to a grand reception. As the soldiers went by, the crowds cheered, and some well-dressed women walked around the square carrying baskets full of white feathers which they were handing out to all the young men who weren’t in uniform. I thought these women might take pity on me, and I ran in desperation towards them. ‘Please, will you help my mother? She is sick, and I don’t know what to do.
Please.
’

I was so frightened. I pointed to my mother, still lying on the cobbles; but a woman with a stern face who carried a Bible as well as a basket of feathers said to me, ‘Child, you’re hampering us in our work. God punishes those who break His divine laws.’

I couldn’t believe her cruelty. I ran back to my mother, who had opened her eyes and was trying to get up; I struggled to get her seated again on the nearby bench, but I was really shaking by then. A couple of men walking by looked at my mother and me as if we were part of a sideshow.

‘Blow me if it ain’t Florrie Davis,’ one of them said to the other. ‘She used to be a bit generous with her favours when she was a lass, didn’t she?’

‘Aye. She caught poor Phil Davis right and proper.’

I didn’t understand what they meant. All I knew was that they peered at us once more without pity, then they moved on. I had my arm round my mother’s waist but her eyes were fluttering shut again and I really didn’t know what to do. Then I saw that the crowds had parted to let a man in a smart grey coat walk past.

To this day I don’t know what made me do it. What made me think that he of all people might help me. But there was something about him, something I later tried and failed to put into words; certainly a kind of desperation overwhelmed me as I called out to him, ‘Sir! Please will you help us, sir?’

He turned and looked at my mother leaning against me on the bench, her face deathly white. ‘Surely she needs a doctor,’ he said.

Something in me broke then, I was so frightened. I cried out, ‘Do you think I don’t know it? All these people, I’ve asked them to help. I’ve
begged
them to help. Would you let this happen to your wife or your sister, sir? Would you?’

He’d drawn closer now, frowning. ‘Are you her daughter?’

I was trying hard not to weep. ‘Yes, sir. My name is Sophie.’

‘Has she been sick for a while, Sophie?’

She had but, oh God, she knew she couldn’t afford what a doctor would cost, and that was the truth of it. Instead she’d been saving up so she could buy things for me. So she could buy me ribbons.

The rich man looked grave. ‘Come,’ he said at last. ‘We’ll take her to the hospital.’

He was younger than Lord Charlwood. He had thick dark brown hair and blue eyes, and I thought his eyes were sad. I remember that one of the women thrust a white feather at him saying, ‘Call yourself a man, and not in uniform?’

Everything happened so quickly after that. He had a big shiny motorcar parked on the far side of the market, with a driver waiting in it; he must have been walking towards it when I stopped him. He ordered two bystanders to carefully lift my mother and put her into the back seat, then he sat in the front while I sat next to my mother and held her hand, which felt cold, so cold. ‘It’s all right, Mama,’ I whispered. ‘It’s all right.’

That was my first time in a motorcar. At the hospital my mother was taken away, and we waited in a green-tiled corridor that smelled of antiseptic. I’ve never afterwards been able to breathe in that smell without feeling utter dread.

Then the doctors came back and said to me, ‘We’re sorry, but your mother’s died. She was very ill, didn’t you know that? She should have seen a doctor long ago.’

In that moment my whole world came tumbling down. The rich man with the blue eyes grasped me by the arm because I was trying to run to where they’d taken her. I was saying to him, to all of them, ‘She couldn’t afford a doctor. She couldn’t afford to stop work, even though she was so ill.’ My eyes were burning with tears; I tried to punch his chest. ‘Didn’t you see her hands? Her poor hands, they were red and rough from
working for people like you, and she had no money to see a doctor.’

The rich man held my shoulders as tears poured down my cheeks. I remember his hands were beautiful; I remember the faint lemon scent of soap on his skin, when most men I knew smelled of sweat. ‘You must go home,’ he said. ‘To your family.’

My family? My mother was dead; my father had gone to the war. ‘I’ve no one,’ I told him. I felt bitter grief. ‘No one else.’

‘How old are you, child?’

‘I’m thirteen,’ I whispered.

The man with the blue eyes told me to wait for him, then went away to speak to the doctors again. I found out later that he paid for everything so that my dear mother wouldn’t have a pauper’s burial but had a small carved headstone in our village churchyard, but I didn’t thank him for what he did that day. I didn’t know how to; besides, I thought I’d never see him again. He led me outside to his motorcar and he said, ‘You can’t live by yourself. I’ll get a letter sent to the housekeeper at Belfield Hall. Her name is Mrs Burdett and the letter will explain that you need a job.’

I shook my head. ‘My mother worked in the Belfield laundry. They sent her away because – because—’

He interrupted, ‘Mrs Burdett will take care of that. You’ll be safe there, at least until you’re old enough to decide what you want to do with your life. Is that all right, Sophie?’

I thought of my hands, getting as red and raw as my mother’s. I thought of Lord Charlwood pursuing my
mother in the gardens. But I nodded because I could think of nothing else to do, nowhere else to go.

The tears rolled down my cheeks. ‘I loved her so much.’

He bent down so that his head was level with mine, his blue eyes searching mine. ‘I can see that,’ he said gravely. ‘Save your love, Sophie. Remember that people judge you by the value you place on yourself. Work hard at the Hall and in a few years you can start making your own plans, living your own dreams. Do you understand?’

I scrubbed away my tears and gazed up at him. ‘Yes, sir. I understand.’

‘Good girl. Now – ’ he straightened up – ‘have you a friend or neighbour? Someone who’ll look after you for a few days before you go to the Hall?’

‘There’s Mrs Baxter,’ I whispered. ‘And Will. Will is my friend.’

‘Then go to them,’ he said. ‘I have to leave you now, Sophie, but remember what I said, won’t you?’

I suddenly didn’t want him to leave me. ‘Do you live at the Hall, sir? Shall I see you there?’

‘You won’t see me there, no.’ Bitterness suddenly filled his eyes. ‘But listen.’ He got out a sheet of paper and wrote down a London address. ‘Write to me, will you? Even if it’s only every few months or so, send me a letter to let me know you’re all right.’

‘You haven’t put your name,’ I pointed out.

‘My name is Mr Maldon.’ He scribbled that too, beneath the address. ‘Now, do you promise to write?’

I knuckled the tears from my cheeks. ‘I promise.’

His driver took me to our village in the smart motorcar, which caused a great commotion. I told Will’s mother what had happened and she hugged me tightly while all her ragged children clustered round, wide-eyed.

Will walked with me to our cottage, where I packed up my few possessions and my mother’s half-dozen books, and I gave Mrs Baxter the white blouse my mother had worn for that party at the Hall. I didn’t cry again.

But I never forgot a single thing that happened that day and, years later, when I knew what I know now, I remembered that they gave him a white feather. I couldn’t get that from my mind.
They gave him a white feather.

‘If you please, I’ve come to speak to Mrs Burdett.’ My voice faltered as the stern housemaid looked me up and down.

My mother’s funeral had taken place three days before, with myself and the Baxters and a few of our neighbours gathered at the local church. It had been cold and raining and the birds had stopped their spring song. I had thought that no one could see my tears, but Will had touched my hand in silent sympathy.

Now I stood at the back door of the Hall, lonely as could be beneath the gaze of the housemaid who glared at me so. I was a scrawny little thing in a patched-up brown dress, and the housekeeper Mrs Burdett, when I was taken to her sitting room, looked disapproving also. ‘Are you Sophie Davis?’

‘Yes, ma’am, that’s to say—’

‘I’ve received a letter,’ she interrupted.

‘From Mr Maldon?’

‘Mr Maldon?’ She appeared puzzled. ‘No,’ she went on, ‘from the bank manager in Oxford, Mr Isherwood. He says you’re of good character and I’m to find you a place if I can.’

My fear gave way to confusion – why hadn’t Mr
Maldon written to her himself? But I thought it better to keep quiet, especially as Mrs Burdett’s face didn’t look particularly kind to me.

‘Your mother Florence Davis used to work here in the laundry, didn’t she? Thinking of using her name, were you? Well, don’t,’ she said. ‘You’ll be paid ten pounds a year, you’ll start as a scullery maid, and we’ll call you Sophie Smith.’

I think the colour flamed in my cheeks, because I was remembering my mother and Lord Charlwood that day in the gardens long ago, and guessing this woman knew of it too. Mrs Burdett was eyeing me sharply. ‘Do you want the place, girl? Or don’t you?’

‘Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.’

‘Then I’ll take you to the kitchen and introduce you to Cook – she’ll be glad of an extra pair of hands.’

This meant I had somewhere to stay at least, and the chance to earn my living, however pitiful the pay. I followed Mrs Burdett to the door, eager to please, but I couldn’t help stopping by a black-framed photograph on the wall, which was a portrait of a man in army uniform.

Mrs Burdett saw me looking. ‘My brother Wilfred,’ she said. Her voice was suddenly different. ‘He was killed in the fighting in France last year.’

So I was set on as a scullery maid, lowest of the low, and told I would sleep in the attic dormitory with six other maids, all older than me. I was told I had to get up at five to clean the kitchen and scrub the range every single day and, apart from giving me orders, most of the maids never troubled to talk to me at all, except to tease me.