Rosemary Aitken (10 page)

Walter peered at him through the pipe-smoke. Joe always thought the worst of everyone. He supposed that he ought not to be surprised at the idea of his daughter having some admirer – after all she had her mother’s looks – but all the same! ‘Not Effie, surely? She wouldn’t go encouraging anyone. Not without telling me about it, any road.’ He was about to add that Effie was not much more than a child, when it occurred to him that his own Susan had been younger still when he started wooing her, so he just said unhappily, ‘You don’t really think she would?’

Joe had got his pipe alight again. ‘I did warn you, Wally. You know I’ve had my private thoughts about that girl, ever since they found that fellow that she swore she didn’t know. Course, I know that she persuaded you – and if you are happy, who am I to judge? But it’s a funny business – that’s all I will say. I’d keep my eye on Effie, if I were you, old son. I’d worry about the company she keeps, if she were mine, especially when we are not around to see . . .’ He broke off as Madge and the elder girls came clattering downstairs.

Walter would have liked to ask him more – it was hard to let this painful matter go, like putting your tongue into a sore place in a tooth – but Joe was on his feet, off to talk Unions at the Miner’s Arms. Walter lingered for a little, for politeness’ sake, while Madge and her girls were washing up the cloam, and the conversation turned to a story Peg had heard in town – some fancy new liner that had hit some ice and drowned the passengers.

‘Very first time it went to sea! And it was supposed to be unsinkable!’

So he listened for a moment but that was all she knew, and shortly after it was time to leave. But for that night and many afterwards he had uneasy dreams – not about the liner, but about what Joe had said. Next time he saw Effie they would have to talk.

‘My dear life! Effie!’ It was Tuesday and Lettie was amazed to see her friend waiting for her in the Westons’ Haberdashery, just as she used to do. ‘A sight for sore eyes, this is, and no mistake! I’d given up all hope of ever seeing you again. And here you are, more ’andsome than you ever were!’ It was no more than the truth. There was a sparkle about Effie that had not been there before. Lettie was not given to paying compliments, but she was disposed to be magnanimous today, since there was no Bert to make comparisons. She noticed her friend’s embarrassed blush and added wickedly, ‘Thought you’d forgotten me! Too caught up with that young constable of yours to have time for your old friends.’

Effie was looking even more embarrassed now. ‘Course it isn’t like that! It was just . . . there was so much trouble last time with those bally books, what with that dead man and everything – I thought it was better if we didn’t meet here for a bit. I didn’t want to be caught up in all that again.’

Lettie laughed. Effie took everything so seriously, it wasn’t fair to tease her. All the same she could not resist the impulse to say, ‘Should have thought you would have been quite pleased about the way that day turned out. How would you have met your policeman otherwise?’

‘Here! Don’t talk so loudly. Miss Pearl will overhear.’ Effie glanced nervously around the shop, but Miss Pearl was out of earshot, sorting books out in the office at the back.

Lettie grinned. ‘Afraid she’d tell tales on you to Mrs T? Well if that’s the case you want to be more careful where you go. Don’t think I haven’t seen you, sneaking round the lanes – you two were at Gulval only just last week.’

Effie had turned pinker than the skein of sewing silk that she was taking from the stand. ‘How do you know that?’

‘Oh, Bert and I were out there, but we didn’t stop to speak. Obviously you two did not want to be disturbed.’ She didn’t add that she had not wanted to be disturbed herself. She had wangled an excuse to go out that way, taking some samples to a private dressmaker, and so snatched a few minutes in a disused shed with Bert, where he had proved to be extremely passionate.

‘Well I never saw you!’

‘Too busy making eyes at him, I ’spect!’ Lettie said, not altogether truthfully. And then, in case Effie started asking awkward questions about her vantage point, she added teasingly, ‘Wouldn’t care to have a policeman for a beau myself – you’d always be thinking that he’s checking up on you. But he seems quite smitten, I’ll say that for him.’

Effie selected another skein, pretending to match it to a sample that she’d brought. After a moment, in which she did not raise her eyes, she muttered, ‘Actually that’s why I waited to talk to you today. I wanted to ask for your advice.’

Lettie looked as grave as possible, though she was grinning inwardly. She loved to have a secret and it was flattering to be turned to in this way. Of course she did know much more about the world than Effie did, and had a good deal more experience with boys. She said, in a whisper, ‘Naturally I’ll help. Not in the shop, of course. Miss Pearl’s got bigger ears than Farmer Crowdie’s mule. Perhaps outside on the corner, when you’ve finished here?’

Effie nodded and turned away to fidget with her silks, while Lettie went over to the shelves of books and selected another half a dozen volumes for Miss Caroline to ignore. She took them to the counter for Miss Pearl to issue them.

Miss Pearl gave her usual thin-lipped smile. ‘Ah, I see that my sister has put a book aside for you – or for your employer, I suppose that I should say. Another Scarlet Pimpernel that has just come in – apparently Miss Knight has shown a predilection for those tales.’

Lettie had no idea what a ‘predilection’ was, but she nodded anyway, although she didn’t like the sound of it all. She knew what ‘dereliction of duty’ was – she had heard it thundered at a butler once, when the man was discovered in the scullery much the worse for wear on the Major’s favourite port. A ‘predilection’ sounded rather similar – perhaps it meant that somebody had found you out – so she was decidedly nervous as she took the proffered book and swapped it for one that she had chosen from the shelf. To her alarm she recognized the writer’s name: the one that had nearly got her caught out once before.

But Miss Pearl said nothing, only pursed her lips and entered up the borrowings as usual. Lettie was quite relieved to make a quick escape and go to wait for Effie round the corner of the street. But the more she waited, the more Effie didn’t come, until after ten minutes by the town hall clock, which you could see above the rooftops, Lettie was about to give her up and go.

But, thank heavens, here she was at last, with her basketful of books and the little paper packet with the silks in it.

‘My life, Effie!’ Lettie said as she came up. ‘What took you such a time? I’d begun to think that I was going to have to go without that chat that you were looking for. ’Ere!’ she added, gazing into Effie’s flushed and troubled face, ‘You’re looking all peculiar. Is there something wrong?’

They were standing directly outside a house, and Effie put her basket down and leant against the wall. She looked quite shaken as she shook her head. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting – I’d have finished long ago, only Miss Pearl kept me back. Wanted to ask me questions about that man again.’

Lettie said, unnecessarily, ‘The one Miss Blanche found lying in the court?’ She realized she was frowning. ‘I thought all that was dead and buried long ago.’ She tried a little joke. ‘Just like the man himself.’

Effie was in no mood to be amused. She gave a little sigh. ‘And so did I! I’d almost managed to half-forget that day. I don’t know why she wants to rake it up again.’

‘What did she want to know, in any case?’ Lettie was intrigued.

‘Was it true I didn’t know him – or was there something that I hadn’t told the police? Or any little thing that I’d remembered since? I told her that there wasn’t, but she wouldn’t let it rest. On and on, as though by asking the same thing in a dozen different ways, she was going to make me change my mind.’

‘So what did you tell her?’

‘The same thing I told the police. That I’d never seen the fellow and I don’t know who he was. I’m not sure that she believed me, but I know that Alex does, so I finally suggested that she took it up with him.’

‘You never!’ Lettie giggled. Effie could be more daring than she had supposed. ‘What did she say to that?’

Effie’s tense face softened to a reluctant grin. ‘Nothing very much. Made a sour face as though I’d pricked her with a pin, then changed the subject and issued me my books – all with an air of outrage as though I’d told her lies.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what she expected me to say.’

Lettie shrugged. ‘Wonder what started her on that again? Must have been something happened, to have reminded her.’

‘I didn’t think of that.’ Effie seemed to be considering this idea. ‘I suppose there might have been. But if there was, she didn’t say anything to me.’

Lettie looked down at the books that she was carrying. There was that ‘predilection’ volume on the top – perhaps that was what had jogged Miss Weston’s memory. But she did not share the thought with Effie. ‘Can’t have been anything important, or the police would know,’ she said lightly. ‘And your constable would tell you – so don’t let that worry you. Perhaps it was just seeing us together in the shop. Reminded her of something she’d been mulling in her mind – you know how suspicious Miss Pearl can sometimes be.’ Effie nodded but she was still looking unconvinced so Lettie changed the subject, purposely. ‘But don’t let’s waste what little time we’ve got. That wasn’t what you wanted to talk to me about. You said you wanted to ask for my advice?’

It worked. Effie picked up her basket and perked up at once. ‘Actually, it is about that policeman . . .’ she began.

When she had finished the story, there wasn’t much to tell. Her young man had kissed her, half by accident, that’s all – and Effie wanted to make a drama out of it. If she only knew what Bert and Lettie had been doing in that shed, then there might have been something interesting to say! But here was Effie asking for advice.

‘What would you do, Lettie, if you were in my shoes? Should I break it off before it gets too serious?’

Lettie did her best. ‘Didn’t you like it when he kissed you?’

‘Yes of course I did; that’s why I’m asking you. And I’m sure that he likes me. He gave me a little notebook as a present, Christmas-time. But, as my cousin pointed out to me, I can’t hope for any future with a man like him.’

Lettie stared at her. ‘You got another suitor?’

Effie shook her head. ‘Not one I care about. No-one I’d want to marry, that’s for certain-sure.’

‘Then what’s the worry with this policeman? You like him and he likes you. What’s a kiss or two? I can’t see that there’s any harm in that. You’re not hurting anyone as far as I can see and it doesn’t stop you finding someone better later on. If you decide you really want him, that’s a different thing.’

‘My cousin doesn’t think that it would work out, anyway,’ Effie said. ‘His family would probably not permit it for one thing, and for another Uncle Joe would hit the rafters if he knew – very likely forbid me to come home at all.’

Lettie laughed. ‘Your policeman doesn’t need permission, he’s over twenty-one. It’s true you might have to change your uncle’s views a bit – though there might even be ways and means of doing that, supposing this Alex is the sort of decent fellow that you say, and would stand by you if . . . well, if it really came to it.’

Effie could be peculiarly dense sometimes. She said sharply, ‘If it came to what?’

‘If you . . . you know . . . got yourself into the family way,’ Lettie prompted with a grin.

Her friend looked puzzled. ‘Don’t you have to be married to do that?’ She wasn’t fooling, it was clear she didn’t understand. She probably thought you had to send a message to the stork!

Lettie said impatiently, ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! You have lived in the country all your life. You must have noticed what was happening in the fields!’ But Effie still looked baffled. Of course she had no mother to tell her anything, and for all her reading there was obviously lots she didn’t know. Probably they didn’t put that sort of thing in books. Lettie sighed. ‘I’ll have to tell you some time, but I can’t do it now. Miss Caroline will give me a jawing for lateness as it is. I’ll see you in a fortnight, if you can manage it, at the Westons’ shop as usual. In the meantime, enjoy that young policeman’s company while you’ve got the chance. Lots of girls would give their eyes for him.’ And with that she hurried off.

Bert would have a giggle when he heard – they had not required a book to work it out – but there wasn’t even time to wait for him that day. She was already late and braced for trouble as she hurried home, but she need not have been concerned. Miss Caroline just glanced briefly at the books, as usual, then put them down and fussed about a wine-stain on her favourite dress.

‘You haven’t managed to get it out at all,’ she said, as though Lettie had not spent half an hour sponging it carefully with vinegar. ‘You’ll just have to sew on a silk rose spray to cover it. The one I had on last year’s old tulle toque will do; you’ll find it in a hat-box in the attic, I expect.’

Lettie was inwardly horrified, though she dared not let it show. A lady’s maid was expected to deal with simple alterations and repairs, but she did not have Effie’s talent for that sort of thing, and was rarely called on to attempt such tasks. ‘The regular sewing-woman will be here tomorrow . . .’ she demurred.

Her mistress shook her head. ‘This can’t wait for the sewing-girl to come. I want that dress tonight. I’m going to a charity supper for the Titanic Fund.’

So Lettie had to do it, which took her simply hours, but at least there were no ‘predilections’ – then or later on.

It was a relief to talk to Lettie, in a lot of ways. She had said exactly what Effie hoped to hear: there was no harm in seeing Alex and permitting him a kiss.

Effie hugged that notion to her, all through the next few weeks, repeating it like a verse of poetry that you had to learn for school. She muttered it when she was cleaning brass and setting fires. She was not hurting anyone at all. She had no other suitors and, as Lettie said, this friendship did not stop her finding ‘someone better’ later on – though (here she paused in the act of polishing the stairs) it was hard to imagine finding anyone that she liked half as well! ‘More suitable’ of course was what her friend had meant.