The Willow Pool. Elizabeth Elgin
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she could afford it, and swore often, and took money, some said, from gentlemen. Nell’s man had not come back from the last war, and she had remained a widow. Marriageable men were thin on the ground after the Great War, so Nell had become a survivor and laughed when most women would have cried.
‘And thank the good Lord the clocks have gone forward, an’ we’ve got the decent weather to come, and light nights.’
To Nell’s way of thinking the blackout was the worst thing civilians had to endure; worse even than food rationing. In winter, the blackout was complete and unnatural. Not a chink of light to be seen at windows; streetlamps turned off for the duration and not so much as a match to be struck to light a ciggy outdoors, because Hitler’s bombers, when they raided Liverpool, were able to pick out even the glow of a cigarette end. If you had a ciggy to light, that was.
‘Think I’ll put a match to the fire.’ Early April nights could be chilly. ‘And I suppose I’d better open Ma’s case. I’ve put it off too long.’
‘You have! What are you bothered about?’
‘Don’t know.’ Meg reached into the glass pot on the mantelshelf for the tiny key. ‘Nell – did Ma ever tell you about my father? I could get nothing out of her, so in the end I stopped askin’. Was he a scally or somethink?’
‘Dunno. Doll made it plain that the subject of your father wasn’t open for discussion. I never even knew if her and him was married.’
‘But she wore a wedding ring!’
‘Weddin’ rings come cheap, and ten bob well spent if it buys respectability. Your mother never said he’d been killed in the trenches either.’
‘But she wouldn’t say that when I was born four years after the war ended. I wish she’d told me, though. Had you ever thought, Nell, that my father could be a millionaire or a murderer? It’s awful not knowing, and all the time wondering if you’re a bastard or not.’
‘Now that’s enough of talk like that! Your ma wouldn’t have allowed it, and neither will I! Dolly asked me to look out for you, once she got so badly, so it’s me as’ll be in control, like, till you’re twenty-one. Doll wore a wedding ring, so that says you’re legitimate, Meg Blundell, and never forget it!’
‘OK. I won’t. And I’m glad there’s someone I can turn to, though I won’t be a bother to you.’
‘You’d better not be, and you know what I’m gettin’ at. No messin’ around with fellers; that kind of messin’, I mean. And where has Kip Lewis been, then?’
‘Australia. He brought me those things.’ She nodded towards the table. ‘You and Tommy are to come to Sunday tea. We’ll have corned beef hash, and peaches for pudding. How will that suit you?’
‘Very nicely, and thanks for sharin’ your luck, girl. Tommy’ll be made up too. Poor little bugger. He’s that frail he looks as if the next puff of wind’ll blow him over. Sad he never wed. But are you going to open that case or aren’t you?’
Nell was curious. Any normal girl, she reasoned, would’ve done it weeks ago. But Meg Blundell was like her mother in a lot of ways: quiet, sometimes, and given to stubbornness. And besides, there really could be a bankbook locked away, and heaven only knew what else!
‘I suppose I must.’ Meg gazed at the tiny key in the palm of her hand. ‘I don’t want to, for all that. I don’t want to find out – anything …’
She and Ma had been all right as they were and all at once she didn’t want to know about the man who fathered her. And when she turned that key it might be there, staring her in the face, and she might be very, very sorry.
She fumbled the key into the lock, turning it reluctantly. In the fleeting of a second she imagined she might find a coiled snake there, ready to bite; a spider, big as the palm of her hand. Or nothing of any importance – not even a bankbook.
She lifted the lid, sniffing because she expected the smell of musty papers; closing her eyes when the faint scent of lavender touched her nostrils. She glanced down to see a fat brown envelope, addressed to Dorothy Blundell, 1 Tippet’s Yard, Liverpool 3, Lancashire. The name had been crossed through in a different ink and the words Margaret Mary Blundell written in her mother’s hand. The envelope was tied with tape and the knot secured with red sealing wax. Meg lifted her eyes to those of the older woman.
‘You goin’ to see what’s in it, girl?’ Nell ran her tongue round her lips.
‘N-no. Not just yet.’ The package looked official and best dealt with later. When she was alone.
‘There might be money in it!’
‘No. Papers, by the feel of it.’ Ma’s marriage lines? Her own birth certificate? Photographs? Letters, even? ‘Ma would’ve spent it if there’d been money. I – I’ll leave it, Nell, if you don’t mind.’
‘Please yourself, I’m sure.’ Nell was put out. ‘Nuthin’ to do with me, though your ma left a will, I know that for certain. Me an’ Tommy was witness to it!’
‘But she had nothink to leave.’ Meg pulled in her breath.
‘Happen not. But to my way of thinking, if all you have to leave is an ’at and an ’atpin and a pound in yer purse, then you should set it down legal who you want it to go to! Dolly wrote that will just after the war started; said all she had was to go to her only child Margaret Mary, and me and Tommy read it, then put our names to it. Like as not it’s in that envelope. Best you open it.’
‘No. Later.’ Quickly Meg took out another envelope. It had Candlefold Hall written on it and she knew at once it held photographs. To compensate for her neighbour’s disappointment she handed it to her. ‘You open it, Nell.’
‘Suppose this is her precious Candlefold.’ Mollified, Nell squinted at the photograph of a large, very old house surrounded by lawns and flowerbeds.
‘There’s a lot of trees, Nell.’ It really existed, then, Ma’s place that was heaven on earth. ‘Looks like it’s in the country.’
‘Hm. If them trees was around here they’d have been chopped down long since, for burnin’! And look at this one; must be the feller that ’ouse belonged to.’ She turned over another photograph to read Mr & Mrs Kenworthy, in writing she knew to be Dolly Blundell’s. ‘They look a decent couple. Bet they were worth a bob or two. And who’s this then – the old granny?’
A plump, middle-aged lady wearing a cape and black bonnet sat beside an ornamental fountain, holding a baby.
‘No. It’s the nanny,’ Meg smiled. ‘Nanny Boag and Master Marcus, 1917, Ma’s written.’ Her heart quickened, her cheeks burned. All at once they were looking at her mother’s life in another world; at a big, old house in the country; at Ma’s employers and their infant son.
Hastily Meg scanned each photograph and snapshot, picking out one of a group of servants arranged either side of a broad flight of steps – and standing a little apart the butler, was it, and the housekeeper? And there stood Ma, all straight and starched, staring ahead as befitted the occasion.
Another snap, faded to sepia now, of three smiling maids in long dresses and pinafores and mobcaps, in a cobbled yard beside a pump trough.
‘See, Nell! Norah, Self & Gladys. That’s Ma, in the middle. And look at this one!’
Tents on Candlefold’s front lawn, and stalls and wooden tables and chairs, and Ma and the two other housemaids in pretty flowered frocks and straw hats. Only this time the inscription was in a different hand and read. Candlefold 1916. Garden Party for wounded soldiers. Dolly Blundell, Norah Bentley, Gladys Tucker. Her mother, sixteen years old. Dolly Blundell! So Ma had never married!
‘What do you make of that, Nell?’ Her mouth had gone dry. ‘Ma’s name was –’
‘Ar. Seems it’s always