For Many a Long Day (6 page)

‘Ah, I see,’ he said, nodding to himself, a small smile moving across his face. ‘And when does the landlord foreclose?’ he continued abruptly.

‘He said he was sending in the bailiffs at the end of the month.’

‘And how much are the arrears outstanding?’

Ellie was quite taken aback by his change in tone, but she answered his stream of questions as clearly as she could. It wasn’t that she didn’t have the answers, for she and Daisy had been back and forth over the figures and the money needed a hundred times, but she couldn’t understand why he wanted to know all these details when he hadn’t said anything whatever about helping her.

‘I’ve been considering adding to my staff, Miss Scott,’ he said amiably, to Ellie’s further confusion. ‘Another young woman. I have someone in mind. But she will need training and I think you will be the best person to do that. Perhaps if you could undertake this task
for me
, I could negotiate with Mr Ruddell
for you
on behalf of Miss Hutchinson. I think you can take it that I shall be successful and we can review our arrangement in six months time. If
you
are agreeable, that is,’ he concluded, standing up and inclining his head slightly towards her.

‘Yes, of course, Mr Freeburn,’ she replied, not quite sure what she had actually agreed to.

‘There is only one small condition. You may reassure Miss Hutchinson that all will be well, at least for six months, but she may
not at any time mention my name
to her mother or anyone else. This
arrangement between us must remain completely private. I’m sure I can rely on you. I’m depending on you to explain to Miss Hutchinson. Is that quite clear?’

It was only as she was stepping cautiously down the highly-polished front stairs that led directly into the shop that Ellie finally grasped something good most certainly had happened. She couldn’t follow his thinking at all, but she was quite sure he had said
six months
. And Mr Freeburn always meant what he said. That was also something everyone said about him.
If yer man says a thing, then he means it and there’s no shiftin’ him
.

Alone in his office, Charlie Freeburn smiled and rubbed his hands together in pleasure. It was worth what it might cost him for the farm itself to have Miss Scott for another two years. She brought a great deal of trade to the shop, though she was quite unaware of the fact. She saved him pounds in wasted fabric by her skill in cutting and even if he eventually had to raise her pay when she became Senior Assistant, he’d saved himself that for six months.

It was always a good thing to avoid such increases for as long as possible, but if the other part of his plan went as he hoped, he’d make that up to her. When she left in two years time, or whenever, he would certainly see she carried away something more substantial than the traditional gift of a silver cake stand.

He looked at his watch, decided there was no time like the present and lifted the large black receiver of the telephone standing on his desk. Yet another of his wife’s relatives worked at the Exchange in English Street, so he could say nothing whatever on the telephone, but he could make an appointment at Munro and Anderson for this afternoon.

‘Thank you. Three o’clock will be quite convenient,’ he said, placing the instrument carefully back in its cradle.

He smiled and breathed deeply. He had never liked James Ruddell, a boy some years older and many inches taller than himself when they were in the same class at the school on The Mall. It would give him the greatest pleasure to make him an offer for the farm that he couldn’t refuse.

Given Ruddell read neither book nor paper, nor took the slightest interest in the meetings of the Rural District Council, what he would certainly not know was the decision to proceed with the new Portadown Road. That would require the purchase of at least half the large meadow, one of the three oddly-shaped fields that made up the grazing on Hutchinson’s farm.

‘This ought to be
my
treat,’ said Daisy wryly, as the dark-eyed Italian boy slid dishes of ice-cream along the marble-topped table between them. ‘After all you’ve done for me.’

‘Not a bit of it,’ laughed Ellie. ‘Sure George is
going to earn so much money we’ll hardly need my savings. Anyway,
this
is a celebration. We’ve never had a North Pole before.’

‘Isn’t it lovely?’

Ellie looked at her friend and thought it wasn’t just the ice-cream that was lovely. She’d almost forgotten what a pretty girl Daisy was. She’d undone the tight plait she normally wore for work and her dark wavy hair fell around her pleasant, rounded face. But it was her eyes that said so much. Freed of the anxiety of the last week, there was a sparkle, a look of mischief almost, that made Ellie feel happy just to look at her.

‘Why do you think we’re not to let on?’ she asked, spreading the chocolate dressing over another spoonful of ice cream and pausing before putting it into her small, mobile mouth.

‘I’ve no idea. But you
will
be careful won’t you, Daisy? Even with your mother …’

‘You mean my big mouth,’ she replied, giggling.

‘No, I did not.’

‘I’ll behave myself. Honest. Brownie’s honour.’

‘Were you ever a Brownie?’

‘No, but I
can
keep a promise.’

Yes, that was true. Daisy was always as good as her word. Whatever she offered to do, however difficult the task, she’d do what she said she would do. But hadn’t they all been taught at school how important it was to keep promises.

She thought suddenly of their copy books with their beautifully written copperplate sentences. A whole collection of sayings about keeping one’s word and not telling tales ran through her head. She remembered Master Ebbitt getting them to repeat something from a book he set great store by. ‘
A promise made is a debt unpaid
.’

She could still recall every detail of the hot afternoon, the smell of chalk and old floorboards and the chant of children’s voices. Over and over again. No wonder she could still repeat it. There were other similar sayings they had also to learn by heart, like ‘
Be always loyal. To your family, your country and your King
.’

‘Now, tell me all about George,’ Daisy began, licking her spoon. ‘It’s been all about me this last week, more’s the pity. Did ye get engaged? I looked for the ring when ye came in this mornin’ an’ then I thought, they’ll hardly have had time, or maybe he hadn’t enough after paying his fare, or maybe she doesn’t want to wear it at work. Now c’mon I’m dyin’ to know. Tell me what ye’s did.’

As she paused, waiting, her eyes bright, Ellie felt her heart sink. Daisy saw George’s departure as great news, something to be excited about, full of hope for the future, but somehow she herself didn’t seem to be as happy about it as she thought she should be.

‘You’re right, there wasn’t much time,’ she
said, as she scraped up the very last smear of the delicious ice-cream. ‘We wouldn’t have had time to buy a ring, even if George had any money. But you don’t really need a ring. A promise is a promise,’ she added firmly.

Daisy Hutchinson didn’t agree. Some promises needed more than just words. Like a ring. But she didn’t say so. Ellie Scott was the kindest person she had ever met, but she didn’t think enough of herself. After all this time George could have done better. He could at least have bought her a little piece of jewellery, a brooch, or a bracelet. When they’d been walking out for years now, surely he could see the need for some wee token.

‘Have you thought how you’ll tell your Ma, Daisy?’ Ellie asked, as she counted out coins from her small purse.

‘Aye, I have. And not a word about yer man. That’s a promise.’

As the two girls walked out of Caffola’s Ice Cream parlour, it suddenly struck Ellie that George had not said anything that sounded like a proper promise. But, really, he didn’t need to. Everyone had always known they’d get married as soon as they could find a place to live. That wasn’t changed by his going. It was just that he’d be looking for a home for them in Peterborough.

They said goodbye and see you in the morning, and set off in opposite directions through the empty
streets of the city, happier than they’d been in the morning. Still, Ellie was very thoughtful as she cycled quietly out to the Grange, thoughtful about the ship preparing to cast off from the Liverpool Dock en route for Quebec. About the young man it would carry away and what he might be thinking as it slowly moved down the Mersey towards the open sea.

The fine weather which had begun early in May, Ellie’s favourite month, continued as the apple blossom faded and the more striking colours of garden flowers began to catch her eye on her daily journeys back and forth to work.

On the south-facing side of the old stone gable, opposite the forge, her own small garden flourished. The tiny slips from Charlie Running’s rich red geranium he’d left for her at the forge on one of his regular visits, were now vigorous plants, already coming into bloom. They made a brilliant contrast with a purple clematis she’d found herself one Sunday afternoon out walking with George.

In a lane beyond Annacramp, she’d caught sight of a startling carpet of colour spreading over tall weeds, tangled briars and fallen stones in the ruins of an old house. He’d tramped a path for her to let her get a closer look, then he’d cut down some of the more rampant weeds that threatened to choke the roots. She’d laid down pieces of stone to
protect them, then left the plant to go on blooming undisturbed. When they visited the old house again, she found some aquilegia and wallflowers as well, but they did not return with a spade to lift the clematis till all its flowers had gone and only their silvery seed heads and her marker stones showed them where to dig.

Cycling home in the evenings, she thought longingly of walking the lanes, hand in hand, talking about the events of the day, or their plans for the future, before finding a quiet field entrance with a stone pillar to lean against, their arms round each other, kissing. She’d known she would miss him, but the emptiness created by his absence was even worse than she’d expected.

Worse still was the feeling that grew on her every Friday and Saturday night when she came home to spend the evening reading by the stove instead of getting dressed to go to a dance or to the Ritz Cinema. She was amazed how sad she could feel hearing a snatch of dance music on the wireless, flowing out into the street from a café or ice-cream parlour.

Some evenings, when she could bear the dark kitchen and her mother’s continuous monologue no longer, she’d walk down to the forge. There was almost always someone there sitting on the bench inside the door watching her father work. She never felt unwelcome, but unless it was a friend, or a
neighbour she knew well, like Charlie Running, or Ned Wylie, she seldom stayed long, aware that her presence might limit the talk of the older men. She knew too that should she appear too often her father would see she was lonely and she didn’t want to add another burden to the cares of his work, heavy and long at this busiest time of year.

She knew it would be almost two weeks before a letter could possibly arrive. Until he docked in Quebec he couldn’t post what he’d written on the voyage. It would then take at least five or six days to reach Stevie McQuaid’s postbag. She probably ought to allow for a Sunday as well. Each night, when she came in from work, she looked up at the mantelpiece, but there was no brightly-stamped envelope poking out from behind the clock.

After two long weeks had slowly passed, only a card of Liverpool Cathedral with a hasty message on the back stood propped up against the mirror on top of the chest of drawers that served as her dressing table. Daisy had begun by asking each morning if she’d heard from George, but as day followed day and still there was no letter, she’d stopped asking…

‘Ah see yer man’s written at last,’ her mother greeted her one evening at the very end of the month. ‘I’m sure you thought he’d fell and forgot, he’s been that long. Sure maybe he’s enjoyin’ himself so much he’ll not come back atall …’

Ellie was too overjoyed by the sight of the
airmail letter to pay any attention to her mother’s comments. She reached up to the mantelpiece and clutched the envelope, but before the smile had even spread across her face, it faded like snow off a ditch. The letter was indeed the familiar Canadian airmail, but it was from her sister Mary in Toronto, addressed to both her parents.

Later that evening, when her father had peered at the letter through his Woolworth’s reading glasses, he handed it over to his wife. Both he and Ellie knew what she would say when he passed it to her, but they also knew what she would say if he didn’t. ‘Ach sure ye know my eyes are bad. Let Ellie read it out loud.’

She collected herself as best she could, for her hands had begun to feel damp the minute she’d touched the flimsy blue pages, and began:

When it finally arrived four days later, George’s missive brought Ellie little joy. Despite its generous array of stamps and formidable thickness, which for a few moments she’d thought might explained the weeks of delay, from the firmness of the package she quickly guessed that it contained a pack of postcards. And indeed, as soon as she cut carefully along the top of the envelope with her best sewing scissors, she saw he’d sent a complete set of views of Peterborough.

She took them out, turned them over and found to her amazement there was nothing at all written on the back. What he had written was on both sides of the two small sheets of paper in which he’d wrapped them. As she searched in vain for something to set against the anxiety of the last long weeks, her heart sank further and she was glad she’d found the letter on an evening when her mother had retired to bed.

A large, swirling signature took up most of the final quarter of the fourth side of paper. The remaining space he had filled with kisses.

‘Ah don’t care what ye say, Ellie, yer not right at all,’ Daisy announced, as they sat down together on their usual bench under the trees. ‘There’s somethin’ wrong forby George bein’ away and you bein’ lonely.’

Ellie shook her head. ‘I’m just tired, Daisy, that’s all. I’ve been cutting remnants all morning and you know how it gets your back.’

‘I might know if I ever had to do it, but you’re so good at it yer man never lets me near it,’ Daisy retorted sharply.

Ellie smiled, amused by her friend’s vehemence, but she had to admit that Daisy was probably not far wrong. Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to lift her spirits.

‘Why d’ye think it took George so long to write? Why didn’t he write on the boat an’ post it first thing when they landed?’

‘I think maybe it just didn’t occur to him.’

‘Well, maybe you should tell him that it shou’d have. Have you written to him yet?’

‘Do you mean a reply to his, or the other letters I wrote before it came?’

‘Before it came? You mean you’d already written to him for when he arrived?’ Daisy paused dramatically. ‘One letter or more?’

‘Three,’ she admitted sheepishly.

‘Ellie Scott,
you
are
far too
good-natured. You’re not fit to be let out on your own …’

Daisy waved her half-eaten sandwich so vigorously that a piece of cheese fell out, dropped to the ground and was promptly swallowed by one of the sparrows keeping a watchful eye on them.

They both burst out laughing.

‘That’s about the first time I’ve heard ye laugh in weeks,’ Daisy declared, when they’d recovered themselves. ‘Now you listen to me. You helped me
when I was in a bad way. I know this is different, but yer not goin’ the right way about it. If he’s not thinkin’ about you here at home missin’ him, then you hafta tell him. An’ if he’s not much good at writin’ letters, then he’ll just hafta learn, won’t he? He’s not the first man went to Canada to make his money. And if he doesn’t catch on, then there’s still a few men left around here, though not that many I hafta admit.’

‘Oh Daisy, now don’t say that. I love George. I don’t want anyone else.’

‘Wou’d ye have gone out with him if he’d asked you?’

‘Yes, of course. But he couldn’t ask me, could he, given where he’s going to get started?’

‘And did he ask you was him goin’ away what
you
wanted?’

‘He didn’t have much choice, Daisy. It was a good offer. He was only doing what he thought best for us.’

‘Aye, well,’ said Daisy doubtfully, polishing off the last of her sandwich. ‘What happened about the motorbike? Did he sell it?’

‘Yes, he must have done. I didn’t ask him.’

‘That money’d buy a quare nice ring and have plenty left over.’

‘Oh Daisy, he couldn’t do that. He probably gave the money back to his uncle.’

‘Well, we’ll see,’ the younger girl said dubiously.
‘But you write an’ tell him he’ll have to do better than this, or I’ll start lookin’ for a man for ye here. I could do with one fer me’self as well so it’ll be no extra bother.’ With that, she stood up and swept the crumbs from her dark skirt to the waiting sparrows.

Whatever Daisy Hutchinson’s weaknesses might have been, and Charlie Freeburn could certainly have listed some, Ellie Scott knew that she was no fool. Without her practical approach when her mother was so poorly the family would have been split up long ago. True, she’d not seen a way through the problem with the landlord, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t shrewd about other matters where she had some experience.

She thought over all that Daisy had said and made up her mind she’d have to say something to George. Quite what, she’d not decided when a letter arrived from Polly responding to her own in which she’d poured out all her distress.

Thankfully, Ellie closed her bedroom door behind her. No one would interrupt her now she’d said her good-nights. She sat on the edge of the bed and took the letter out of her pocket. The June nights were so long, the sky so clear, she could still see to read it yet again, even though it was after ten o’clock and the window was half-masked by heavy sprays of pink, climbing rose.