Eve and Her Sisters (28 page)

His head was throbbing and he couldn’t remember ever feeling so ill, but his mind was clearer than it had been for years. He believed God had forgiven him. Now he had to forgive himself.

Victory Day, 15 November, began quietly under sombre, granite skies. It was a bitterly cold morning in Newcastle but when, at eleven o’clock precisely, the armistice took effect, giant maroons - hitherto used as warnings of impending disaster - were fired and the population poured onto the streets in scenes of wild rejoicing. Church bells began to ring, Boy Scouts cycled through towns and villages sounding the ‘all clear’ for the last time on bugles, sirens went off and men, women and children cheered in the highways and byways, waving flags and loosing off fireworks. Every serviceman within reach was hoisted shoulder high and carried triumphantly through the streets, folk danced cakewalks in the city centres and squares until the early hours, street lights were uncovered, blackout curtains ripped down and shop windows blazed with light for the first time in years. The country went mad and the pubs were packed until they ran out of beer.

For Eve the day was one of double rejoicing. Unbeknown to her, Howard had arranged for Nell and Toby and their children to be picked up and brought to the house where they would stay the night. They had arrived just as the maroons were fired and when Eve saw her sister standing in the hall with little Lucy in her arms and Toby and their two boys standing behind her, she burst into tears. There followed a wonderful day made all the more special by the noise and hilarity filtering through the windows from the street. Toby and Howard got on like a house on fire, something which clearly amazed Nell. Not so Eve. She knew Howard was equally at home with rich and poor, master and servant. It was one of the things she liked best about her employer.

It wasn’t until late in the evening, when Toby was settling Matthew and Robert down in their room and Eve was sitting with Nell while she fed little Lucy prior to dinner that the two women were alone. Nell glanced round the guest room, her eyes lingering on the expensive furnishings and wide, comfortable four-poster bed. ‘By, lass, this is some place,’ she said softly, her hand stroking the downy head of the baby at her breast. ‘And yet he’s got no side, Mr Ingram, has he?’

Howard had asked Nell and Toby to call him by his Christian name but it was clear Nell found this uncomfortable.

Eve smiled. ‘He’s a nice man. An unusual man.’

‘Oh aye, I’d agree with you there. I couldn’t believe me eyes when his letter came saying he wanted to bring us to see you as a surprise, and that he’d arrange everything.’ Nell paused. ‘You’ve landed on your feet here, lass.’

‘I think so although I still miss Esther.’

‘An’ her, his wife. He’s getting over it a bit, is he?’

Eve nodded. She hadn’t told her sister about Howard’s drinking, feeling it was somehow a betrayal. She had just indicated in her letters that he was finding it hard.

‘An’ the way he talked to my Toby, like he was his equal,’ Nell said. ‘I might as well tell you, lass, Toby was in a right two-an’-eight about coming. He only did it for me. He was for staying home with the bairns an’ me bringing Lucy.’

‘I can understand that.’

‘But he’s not what you’d expect, Mr Ingram, is he?’

‘No, he’s not.’ Eve hesitated a moment. ‘You-you didn’t mention to anyone else where you were going?’

Nell looked at her, a straight look. ‘Toby didn’t even tell his mam an’ da in case it got back, lass, so don’t worry.’

She had promised herself all day she would not ask. Now she found herself saying, ‘How is he?’

‘Caleb? I don’t really know, to be honest, lass. Once Mary scarpered there was no reason for me to go to the inn. He came to the house to tell me she’d gone but from that day to this I’ve exchanged no more than the odd word with him if I’ve seen him out. He’s . . . different. That much I do know. Everyone says it.’

Eve’s heart was thumping hard. ‘In what way?’

‘He don’t smile no more. He’s not up for a laugh like he used to be. Mind, being made a fool of like he was is enough to make any man keep himself to himself. I asked him, when he come to tell me Mary had gone, if he was going to try and find her and bring her back, and do you know what he said?’

‘What?’ She wasn’t sure if she really wanted to know.

‘It’d be as easy to find where the wind blows. That’s what he said. It’s sort of poetic, isn’t it?’

Eve stared at her sister’s round homely face. She wanted to ask if Caleb had asked after her on the odd occasion Nell had spoken to him but she had a good idea what the answer would be. He had been outraged when she had refused to tell him where she was going when she’d left Washington. She could understand it. As far as he was concerned he’d taken them in when they were desperate and always been a good friend to her and then she had thrown his kindness back in his face by insisting she wanted a clean break. And she couldn’t tell him why, she couldn’t say she loved him so much it was a matter of self-preservation to ensure their paths didn’t cross. And so she’d made the excuse that she looked on this new stage of her life as a fresh beginning without the burdens and impediments of the past continuing to hang on and complicate things. She would always be grateful to him, she had said, but now this was
her
time to do what she wanted and what she wanted was to start afresh. Trite words, but he had accepted them at face value.

Nell reached out and took her hand for a moment. ‘He’s a fool, lass. I’ve always said it. An’ you’re worth better.’

‘We’re both fools if loving someone who doesn’t love you makes you a fool.’ Eve smiled sadly. ‘I think it’s more a case that life doesn’t come in neat packages for everyone, Nell. And you can either rant and rave and wear yourself out crying for the moon or get on and make the most of what you do have.’ She glanced at little Lucy sucking lustily and softly stroked the baby’s head. ‘You’re lucky, Nell.’

‘I know it. My Toby might not be everyone’s cup of tea but we suit each other down to the ground. An’ I tell you something else that makes me lucky. I’ve got a sister who’s a diamond. I don’t know what we’d have done without what you give us each month, lass, and I mean that. You’ll never know the difference it’s made. There’s been weeks we’d have been desperate.’

‘I’m glad I could help but you’d do the same for me.’

‘Course I don’t let on to Toby how much it is. I say you’ve sent a couple of bob for the bairns an’ mostly leave it at that. If he’s like his da and the rest of them in one thing it’s in this pride of providing for your own, you know? An’ so I let him think I can make a penny stretch to a pound and he’s happy. His mam’s clicked on though.’

‘She has?’

‘Oh aye, she’s canny, is Mam. “Right good sister, you’ve got,” she said the other day, and she’s said the same more than once. She knows what Toby earns to the penny, them all being miners see, but the men don’t know two figs about housekeeping, do they? Most of ’em anyway, and certainly not my Toby.’

‘No, I suppose not.’ Eve felt a bit uncomfortable to be the cause of Nell’s duplicity but it was for Nell to do what she thought best.

Her sister must have read her mind because, with a slow smile spreading over her face, Nell said, ‘You’d have to tell him if it was you, wouldn’t you? You’ll never make life easy for yourself, our Eve. You can be too honest, you know.’

Eve smiled back, glad Nell hadn’t taken offence. ‘We’re all different. It’s what makes the world go round, after all.’

‘That’s for sure but there’s not many to the pound like you.’ Then suddenly she bent forward, causing the baby to lose her grip on the nipple and squawk in protest, and again took Eve’s hand. ‘I know you think a lot of Caleb but there’s other fish in the sea, lass. If something -
someone
- comes along, don’t miss the chance to get wed and have bairns.You’re a natural mother. Look how you brought me an’ Mary up.’

Eve stared at Nell, taken aback by the urgency in her sister’s voice. ‘I don’t think there’s much chance of that,’ she said after a moment. ‘The men aren’t exactly queueing up.’

Nell looked as though she was about to say something more but as Lucy’s protests grew louder, she settled back in the chair. ‘You don’t know your own worth, lass.You never have.’Then, as though following on from their previous conversation, she added, ‘I like the way you’re doing your hair now, it suits you.’

Eve patted her hair which, instead of being pulled back in a tight bun, was now coiled in shining loops. ‘It was Esther’s idea,’ she admitted softly. ‘When I started here she said she needed to take me in hand.’ Dear Esther. She so missed her. Rising to her feet, she said, ‘I’m just going to check everything is in order for dinner. Come down when you’re ready.’

Nell continued to sit still, the baby at her breast, when Eve had left the room but her outward calm belied the racing of her mind. So it had been the wife who had instigated the change in Eve she’d noticed the minute she’d set eyes on her sister. The way she did her hair, the pretty clothes she was wearing, the neat leather shoes on her feet. Unconsciously Nell tucked her feet in their ugly servicable boots further under the chair. And Eve had filled out a bit, she wasn’t so straight up and down now. And it suited her.

Lucy drifted off to sleep. Nell adjusted her clothes and fastened the buttons of her blouse, but she did not get up. Eve had told her the gist of Esther’s last words but whereas Eve seemed convinced Howard’s wife had just been asking her to stay on and run the household, Nell wasn’t so sure. She sat on for some minutes more before settling the sleeping child in the crib Howard had thoughtfully asked Daisy to purchase the day before, without Eve’s knowledge. He really had thought of everything, Nell told herself, and would you do that just for a housekeeper? Of course by his own admission Eve had been a rock for him after his wife’s death, but still . . . Bringing them here just to please her, making them so welcome, treating them like family. It made you think, didn’t it?

She said the same to Toby much later that night when they had retired to their room after an excellent dinner. Howard and Toby had sat enjoying a glass of port in the dining room after she and Eve had gone through to the drawing room. Oh, the drawing room . . . She had never seen anything like it. The gold drapes and furnishings, the wall-to-wall carpeting in dove grey and the beautiful ornate fireplace. She had been frightened to sit down when she had first entered the house and she hadn’t known a moment’s peace until the lads were in bed and couldn’t break anything. And then Eve had shown her the dining room and the morning room and the library and Howard’s study . . . The house had gone on and on.

Snuggling up to Toby in the big four-poster bed, Nell whispered, ‘I can’t believe our Eve is in charge of running this place, Toby, and him being so nice to her and everything. I mean, what employer would bring us here for the day and put us up an’ all? Howard’s not a bit like I thought he would be.’ She had finally succumbed to calling him by his Christian name some time near the pudding stage of the evening meal.

Toby nodded. ‘He’s a good bloke.’

‘Do you think . . .’ Nell paused. ‘I mean did he, Howard, say anything when you were having your port?’

‘And cigar.’ In the light from the glowing embers in the fireplace, Nell could see that her husband was smiling. ‘Cigar and port, lass. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. The lads won’t believe me when I tell ’em.’

‘Aye, well, don’t let your tongue run away with you. Don’t forget no one knows where she moved to. All right?’

‘Aye, don’t fret. I won’t let on, lass.’

‘So did he? Say anything?’ Nell asked again.

Toby peered at his wife. ‘Course he said something, we didn’t sit in silence, did we? We talked about the bairns and football and the unions. He’s all in favour of the unions. Could have knocked me down with a feather when he said.’

‘What about the war?’

Quietly now, Toby said, ‘No, lass. We didn’t talk about the war. It didn’t seem the day for it somehow.’

There was silence for a moment, interrupted only by the odd crackle and spit from the fire. Then Nell said in a low voice, ‘So that’s all you and him talked about? Our bairns and football and the unions an’ that? What about Eve?’

‘What about her?’

With a sharp wriggle of irritation, Nell twisted to face him. ‘Did Howard talk about Eve? Did he mention her at all?’

‘No. At least I don’t think so. No, no, he didn’t. Why?’

Sighing at the dimness of men and her husband in particular, Nell kissed his bristly cheek. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘If all that was a confluentin’ way of asking me if I think he likes her, then the answer is aye, I do. All right?’

‘You do?’ Nell shot up in bed. ‘Really? You do?’

‘Lie down, woman. What’s the matter with you? Aye, I think Howard’s fond of Eve. Certainly he admires and respects her, you only have to see ’em together to understand that. Whether it’s anything more . . .’ Toby shrugged. ‘It’s early days, lass.’

‘Aye, in a way, but his wife has been gone nearly nine months.’ Nell snuggled down beside him again.

‘That’s nowt though, is it? Nine months.’

‘Oh, it is. How can you say that? It’s nearly a year.’

Toby said nothing. Under any other circumstances, with anyone else, Nell would have been shocked to the core at the merest suggestion the bereaved husband could be looking elsewhere so soon. The baby began to stir and he watched as Nell climbed out of the bed and brought the infant back to feed her. Once Lucy was on the breast, Nell said thoughtfully, ‘Of course our Eve has got to like him too. That’s the thing.’

‘Lass, you’re in danger of putting the cart before the horse here.’

‘I’m not. How can you say that? You said yourself you think he likes her and inviting us here proves that, if nothing else. Going to all that trouble just to please her.’