Nella Last's Peace Page 27

  Nella was fond of babies, and Jessie’s Kathleen, now eight months old and thriving, was a favourite. On Thursday, 30 September Jessie and her daughter were at Nella’s for tea. ‘I felt so dead tired, glad of the peace and the baby’s happy content, and Jessie’s quiet but merry voice. I looked at her and thought “What a lot has happened in a year”, for she came about this time.’ Nella was also claiming time and space for herself in the evenings. ‘I was very firm the other evening and told my husband he must use the front room on Thursday and Friday evening, when he is busy writing. I’m not going to sit dumb and still, afraid to move lest he is disturbed. I’ll have anyone in those nights, too, or listen to talks on the wireless.’ Will objected to having the radio on when he was doing paperwork.

  Tuesday, 5 October. I went down town early, with Mrs Howson. We wanted to choose patterns, she for a new coat and I wanted a dress pattern to make up one of my birthday dress lengths Cliff sent. It was such a good meeting – a speaker from London. I’d thought our big launch – the Himalaya – would have kept WVS members away, but on the contrary, those who had gone came on to the meeting. The speaker, Mrs Cresswick Atkinson, spoke of the WVS as a power of thought and service that would always be a part of life, taking the place of the Church, later feudal landlords and gentry in caring for those in need of help. She spoke of the need and value of leadership – those who could lead should – so moving us all. I found myself later promising to help organise a Hospital Visitors scheme, and was deeply touched to have most of our Hospital Supply members eagerly offering to help me, if I’d organise things. I suppose they got used to me in the war years. Vivid pictures of our war efforts were brought into our minds as the speaker mentioned canteens and servicemen. I saw tears in many eyes, and it wouldn’t have taken much more to make me have a real howl!

  Friday, 8 October. Mrs Brown looked so bewildered as she said, ‘I’d no idea Mrs Last was like this. I planned to be so kind to her, but she won’t let me be!’ Mother scowled persuasively at me and began a long tirade about wanting things as she had always had them. She liked coal in the dining room and to chop sticks on the hearth and leave them piled, etc. Flo wouldn’t let her have her old corsets, had made her put on her ‘best’ pair. Two such nice people had come, wanting money, and all she could give them was five shillings each, etc. Mrs Brown said in a worried way that she knows Mother gave the woman tea, jam and a bit of meat, and I wondered if it was the woman I’d had trouble with. Mother said, ‘She said, “God bless you, Mrs Last – you are an angel.”’ I said, ‘You’re not, you know. You are so afraid of burglars, but are silly enough to encourage that woman who took your little mat and Dad’s scarf and gloves’, but I know how quickly she forgets. I listened as she went on and on. I felt such a sadness. Every little grudge had stayed in her mind, not one memory of kindness shown to her. All the latter had slipped through the meshes of her mind.

  Saturday, 9 October. I felt so dead beat and was thinking of making a real strong cup of tea and having two yeast tablets, when my heart sank as I heard the scrabbling knock my mother-in-law gives. She knew I’d be cross. Her face showed it. I said, ‘Mother, you shouldn’t come out without your coat. Does Mrs Brown know you are out?’ She said, ‘I don’t know and don’t care. I’m tired of her living with me. I’d much rather you came down like you did.’ I knew it was hopeless to reason. I said ‘Ah, I’ve to stay at home with my two little cats – and look after the garden.’ Her eyes narrowed cunningly as she said, ‘I’m going to tell Mrs Brown to go away and I’ll come and stay here.’ I said, ‘No, Mother. You wouldn’t settle. We would both be unhappy. You must settle with Mrs Brown, who is so kind and willing to help you, and you must be kinder and more pleasant to her, or she will leave you, and then you might get a family billeted on you. The Council says that the squatters must be off the gun sites before winter, you know.’ I didn’t add that they were putting them top of the list for houses as they were completed. She looked horrified and I talked casually of crying babies, noisy wireless, rough noisy children and quarrelling women, hoping some remarks would stick in her poor muddled head.

  She wouldn’t hear of going back by bus – said she would walk – but I was firm, and phoned for a taxi – another 4s 6d. But my husband said the other day, ‘Do whatever you think best, at any time. I’ll gladly pay for anything.’ Mrs Brown looked beaten. She said, ‘Mrs Last is so unreasonable. There’s no pleasing her.’ I said loud enough for Mother to hear, ‘Then you will have to put a fire in the other room and have your friends in, and go out all you can, and make yourself as happy as you can, remembering this is your home now.’ Mother said, ‘I don’t think I’d like a fire in two places in the house.’ I gave her a warning look and tried to remind her of our talk, but felt it beyond me. I came back in the taxi. I know the driver well. He said, ‘Your old lady will get run over yet, or else cause an accident – she wanders so heedlessly’, which remark did not lessen the feeling of worry I had.

  Monday, 11 October. A letter from Cliff, to tell me his exhibition promised well, and in which he spoke of his regret none of us could be there, saying he realised we were really the ‘only people who mattered’, as if it had come as a surprise to him. A phrase he used set my rhythm for the day when he spoke so lovingly of the ‘love and background’ I’d given him. As I went down town there was a prayer in my heart that if I grizzled or indulged in self pity it should be my biggest sin, and prayed for the chance to show my deep and ever-growing gratitude for so much where Cliff was concerned. I went to the library and suddenly began to feel really ill, as if I was going over. The heating was on full blast because it was the ‘date’ to start it, yet on the street people looked flushed and over clad in the close heat of the morning.

  In the afternoon baby Kathleen was left with Nella while Jessie took the bus to the town centre.

  Jessie was glad of a cup of tea when she came in tired. She said, ‘I feel half dead – don’t know what I’d have felt walking all the way.’ The blank in her mind seems permanent. I’m so glad I wrote her all the gossip of the street. Today she said, ‘You know, I read your letters yet, going through to pick up little remarks about people’s families, and then I can piece up remarks made after I came home, and today I could sympathise with dear old Mrs Thornborrow about the way her husband suffered and died. I’d have been so distressed if I’d not had some little inkling of what she talked about.’ Dear Jessie, smiling and loving. I so pray her little mental illness will never recur. One thing – George adores her. She and the baby are the centre of his life, and with Kathleen being such a comical little scrap, there’s always laughter in the house.

  Wednesday, 20 October. I’ve had such an upsetting day. Everything has gone wrong and two things, at least, were really worrying. Mrs Salisbury was late. I put all rugs on the line and began to bake. The phone kept ringing. Three times I had to wash my hands, while I was kneading my bread. Mrs Higham rang to say she was not coming to Lancaster next Tuesday – her husband has bronchitis and the painters have come in. Another ring brought a curt announcement that an acquaintance was ‘coming round as soon as convenient’. She is a spoilt, petted woman about my own age. She was a pampered child whose mother thought a sickly child brought some little distinction. Her husband was Mayor twice, and has been a councillor for years, quite a nice man, if somewhat pompous. Some little time ago I met them and they were in great distress. A very good maid suddenly grew tired of Mrs Jones’ tantrums, after over eight years in which they steadily grew worse. Mrs Jones whined, ‘I cannot get another maid, even to sleep out. Do try to see what you can do.’ I said, ‘As it happens, I do know someone who would perhaps suit you. She is very slow, in fact somewhat “mental”, but someone who had her said she is very clean and trustworthy.’

  I gave the Joneses her address. It seems they drove round straight away. I’d no more talk with them, but heard they had got a maid at last who ‘seemed a bit simple’. Mrs Jones swept in like the wrath of God, and pointing a bony finger
at me demanded why I hadn’t told her Elsie was a bad, immoral girl. I said, ‘But she isn’t. She is a very kind silly creature.’ Mrs Jones shrieked – positively shrieked – ‘Did you know she had had two children and got them adopted?’ I said, ‘Yes, but that’s her own affair. Perhaps if you had had sons or boarders I might have hesitated to tell you about her wanting a place, but you are only paying half what most people are doing. You say your house is beautifully kept, and that you can trust her with anything – your cousin told me so. I cannot see why you should feel like this.’

  She was so rude to me, and it made her angrier when I failed to see her point of view. I had to tell her husband he must take her home, that I’d stood all I intended at Hospital Supply, where she used to often ‘create’. I felt really shaken, but quite unrepentant. She went down and engaged her, and had a long talk before she did. I jolly well hope now she cannot even get a charwoman. I could tell she had been beastly to Elsie. Even Mrs Higham, who is very stern with girls in the Social and Moral Welfare home, liked and pitied Elsie, as more sinned against than sinning.

  It delayed me very much. I had to leave quite a lot of little jobs undone, but managed to get my bread, an egg custard and a sponge sandwich done, and my bits of brass and silver cleaned. The butcher brought such good bones for my stock pot, a bit of beef to stew, and sausage for lunch, so with tinned soup, mushroom, turnip and potatoes, and sweet apple slices fried with the sausage, and a sago pudding, lunch was soon ready. I’d sago pudding, a beaker of dried Australian milk and three charcoal biscuits, and hoped for the best as I felt my tummy begin to develop butterflies. I gave Mrs Salisbury my good but shabby tweed coat, and she went off with the air of a duchess going slumming! She looked nice though, and I’ll give her a hat and gloves to match. She is such a good little thing and tries so hard to rear her family nicely, and for their sakes goes out day working. I’d shopping to do. I’d nothing for the cats, so in spite of the stormy day went down town. Fur coats and bootees were everywhere. It was like a January day. I met an old Hospital Supply member but it was too cold to stand talking and we went into a café for a cup of tea and a chat, and looking round it seemed as if most people sitting there had the same idea of getting out of the cold …

  Tensions persisted concerning the care of Nella’s mother-in-law and the perceived responsibilities of her various children (three sons, two daughters), and later that day Will and Nella mulled the matter over.

  My husband said, ‘Mother seemed to think she would have plenty of money to throw round, and has been promising fur coats to the girls, trips to London (dear knows why) to all around her.’ I said, ‘What has she promised you?’, and as he smiled a bit wryly he said, ‘Nothing. I’m the guy who has always paid their money, every Friday morning.’ I said, ‘Your fault and folly was to ever come back to Barrow when you escaped in the First World War. You lacked the courage to strike out for yourself in Southampton, where you would have done well. It looks as if you will go on paying for that folly.’ But I said half jokingly, without malice, ‘Things work out. Arthur and now Cliff are making their own way ahead. I only wanted money to help them.’

  Thursday, 21 October. I’m tired out tonight, mentally more than physically. I got all the little jobs done I couldn’t finish yesterday and was hindered by phone calls. One made me hopping mad. It was from Mr Jones, who apologised for his wife’s temper, and attitude to Elsie. He said, ‘Elsie was the nicest girl we have had, simple minded it’s true, but she laughed at little jokes and, if slow, got done with no fuss. I really rang you to ask if you could find another girl for us. I know my wife offended you, but she needs understanding, you know.’ I said, ‘Perhaps I know her better than you do, Mr Jones. I’ve known her about twenty years longer, and she hadn’t altered much, and I’m afraid I would hesitate to recommend anyone else. You say Elsie was simple minded. I doubt if a normal girl or woman would allow anyone to speak to her as Mrs Jones apparently did, or work for so little money.’ I felt I could have been really rude. I made a little casserole of the beef and carrots, turnip, onion and potatoes. The bone stock was made into good tomato soup, and I’d enough sago pudding.

  My husband rang up and sounded very worried. I could tell Mother was in one of her most aggravating fits, and Mrs Brown was going out this afternoon and evening. If Mother is so nasty with her, it’s common sense for her to clear out. I went down after lunch, wondering what I could do. I couldn’t help recalling the really dreadful life I had with her interfering, her malicious, telltale, fault-finding ways, and with my husband so tied to them with working for his father, there was no escape, for whatever I did was misconstrued and twisted. I scolded her soundly, and suggested she was more friendly with her neighbour next door, who would gladly keep her company any evening. It’s dreadful to think of living to eighty, and no one even liking you, let alone loving you, beyond detached pity. I felt quite indifferent to her tantrums. I said firmly, ‘You must never think you can come and live with Will and I. I couldn’t stand things even as well as Mrs Brown. I know I’d go out when you got difficult, and then you would still be on your own.’ I think she resents sleeping alone most of all. She said, ‘I’ve never slept by myself.’ Even if anyone said they would sleep with her, she has such a reluctance to simple cleanliness they couldn’t share her bed for long. I coaxed and scolded, knowing how futile it was. She would forget rules she really wanted to remember …

  I felt baffled and helpless as I came home. I could have wept with misery, my prayer to outlive my husband more fervent. I made up the fire with wood logs. Their leaping flames and the cup of hot strong tea I made pulled me together. My head felt full of bits of broken glass. I cannot think what to do, and only my husband or I seem to realise the position, or care at all. I don’t ‘care’. I have no liking or respect, never mind love, for the difficult old thing. She is like a snapping turtle anyway. But she is old.

  Saturday, 23 October. My husband wanted to be in Kendal by one o’clock, so we set off early, just after eleven o’clock, meaning to have lunch at a little café on the way that has always advertised chicken lunches and teas. Today, however, they had stopped making the lunch, and there was only sausage and chips, poached eggs on toast, with cakes, fruit, etc. My husband suggested we went on further. He was hungry, so we tried a place that has only been open a short time. On the main road just past Leven’s Bridge a Georgian mansion, set in its own rolling parkland, has been opened as an unlicensed hotel. I’m often puzzled at my reactions to houses reared in late Victorian and fussy Edwardian ‘pretty pretty’ surroundings, where a space on wall or floor was hastily filled. Even the house where Gran ended her busy life was a cluttered horror, of far too big pieces of furniture, too much china, etc. she couldn’t bear to part with when she left the farm. I crave space and wide surfaces. I felt I could have cried aloud in admiration as we stepped through the door into the most perfect black and white tiled hall, and then into a spacious yet gracious room that had evidently at one time been one large and one small room, with three fireplaces. The linen, silver, furniture and décor were perfection. The many long windows that would have been impossible to curtain in anything suitable in today’s shortages have long Hessian curtains, the height making for graceful folds, the borders weighted with wonderfully worked herbaceous flowers in wool work. My serious love of perfection of simplicity crowed over the ‘Pink Dawn’ appointments of china, on snowy damask cloth, and napkins, the silver, and the simple but perfectly cooked meal of oxtail soup, beefsteak and kidney pie, potatoes and creamed turnip, baked apple and custard, as well cooked as we would have had at home. A little oblong silver tray with snow-white coffee pot, and cups and saucers, was set before me. There was about five and a half cups of perfect coffee in the pot! And the meal was only 10s 6d for the two of us.

  During the following fortnight, Nella continued to be concerned about her mother-in-law; she spent much time making dollies; and she ensured that a suitably enthusiastic notice about Cliff’s exhibition in Melbourne
was placed in the North-Western Evening Mail on 3 November. This exhibition marked the start of Cliff’s successful career as a sculptor.

  Friday, 5 November. It’s just three years tonight since Mrs Newall’s husband ‘nearly knocked her senseless’ with the announcement that he had fallen in love desperately with a girl who went to the house. Mrs Newall is a woman I admire deeply – one of those often managing types but kind to the last degree, with a gift of friendship I’ve never seen excelled, if equalled. When the mother of her young hairdresser died suddenly, the father of the two girls nearly went insane with grief – he only lived two years after her death. Kath (the hairdresser) told Mrs Newall with tears that ‘All life and sunshine had gone out of the house’, and Mrs Newall began to invite the two girls round. What Mr Newall saw in Dorothy puzzled everyone. About thirty, untidy, with that lack of personal care that let dandruff from a badly permed head of unruly dark hair lie on her black dress, a sulky expression, scuffed shoes, generally down at heel, and a way of making you feel your tastes in library books were deplorable and she pitied you – she was a librarian and, it was reputed, very, very clever. After two years in which they spent weekends together – he often travelled as far afield as London and Bristol, where she held posts – they came to live together in Ulverston, where on the death of her father, when she divided all monies with her sister, she bought a house, giving up a post of over £600 a year. Mr Newall is head of all dredging operations in and round Barrow docks and, Mrs Newall thinks, ‘hasn’t come out of this nationalising stunt as well as some of the other bosses’. I can never quite see her point of view about divorcing him, for she is in no sense a vindictive woman like Mrs Chislet, who ‘prays to live to be 100, that my husband and THAT woman have a family of bastards’. Today at the WVS office as Mrs Newall sipped her tea she said quietly, ‘No – I’ve no intention of giving him a divorce. He would like me to give it to him for desertion now the three years are up, but I shan’t, you know.’