Lovers Meeting (8 page)

Josie felt dirty and embarrassed. And: ‘My shoulder feels numb.’

Featherstone said drily, ‘I’m sure it does. That was quite a clout you got from that horse. Can you move your shoulder?’

Josie tried and winced but succeeded.

Featherstone nodded. ‘I’m sure it hurts but that’s a good sign.’

‘D’ye reckon she’ll be all right, Doctor?’ The question was put by the driver of the coal cart, anxiously twisting his cap in his hands.

Featherstone said grimly, ‘I think so, but you’re damned lucky not to be answering charges over this.’ He turned back to Josie: ‘I’ve sent someone to fetch a cab. I want to take you home and have a proper look at you. Where d’you live?’

When they arrived at the Urquharts’ house they found one version of the story had preceded them. Betty Baynes, almost hysterical, had run home with the perambulator and told her tale through a flood of tears. ‘If it hadn’t been for Josie, me and those little lambs would ha’ been killed!’

Featherstone examined Josie and found nothing worse than heavy bruising of her shoulder. The blow had been enough to hurl her to the ground and the fall had rendered her unconscious. ‘She was very brave. No doubt about it, she saved your nursemaid and the children.’

He recommended that Josie should keep to her bed for a day and Geoffrey Urquhart, shaken by his beloved grandchildren’s narrow escape from death, insisted on it. Josie had time to reflect, with a shudder, that she had almost died.

When Josie resumed her duties next day, Geoffrey Urquhart summoned her to his study and gave her a chair. Elizabeth, his wife, sat in another while he stood before the fireplace. He said, ‘I owe you a debt I can never repay. But is there anything I can do for you?’

Josie was at a loss for a moment, but then she remembered her worry and answered, ‘I’d be grateful if you’d keep me on, sir.’

Urquhart knew nothing of Mrs Stritch’s tyrannical rule and machinations. Startled, he said, ‘Of course we’re keeping you on. What made you think we were not?’

Josie stumbled over her words. ‘I thought – Mrs Stritch thinks I’m not giving satisfaction, sir.’

Urquhart glanced at his wife. ‘You’d better have a word with Mrs Stritch.’ Then to Josie, ‘You don’t need to worry about that. Now, if you haven’t any other request—?’ He paused.

Josie shook her head. ‘No, sir.’ And she was about to rise, thinking that was the end of it.

But Urquhart went on, ‘Well, Mrs Urquhart and I have talked it over and we propose appointing you to take over the care of the children when Betty leaves to be married in two weeks’ time. How do you feel about that?’

Josie smiled with relief and delight. ‘That would be lovely, sir.’

That night before she slept Josie marvelled at her luck. She did not realise that she was favoured not by fortune but because of her own efforts. The Urquharts knew her too well and would never have agreed to her dismissal, and they had already determined to offer her the post of nursemaid; Josie’s saving the lives of the children had only brought forward the interview by a day or two.

Josie was happy – and less inclined than ever to venture into the North Country, to the house of the fearsome William Langley to demand an inheritance that did not attract her. She had not forgotten Peggy Langley’s injunction, but to Josie’s mind the Langley family were nothing to her and had nothing for her. And as if to hammer home the message, that night she dreamed of the giant looming black against the light and roaring his rage. She woke, crying out, and it was some time before she sank into sleep again.

7

London, April 1907

‘Hey! Hello – Josie?’ The tall young sailor was in bell-bottom trousers and the linen collar outside his jumper had been washed until it was a pale blue. He was not sure as he confronted her. And Josie was uncertain of him. She blinked in the sunlight of a warm spring day. There was something about his eyes, his grin – but she was used to tentative approaches by young men as she took the Urquhart grandchildren for their walk. She held their hands, ready to edge around this sailor, but hesitated. The river of other strollers in Hyde Park washed around the little island they made. He went on, ‘It is, isn’t it, miss? Josie – I forget your second name now, but it was at Hallburgh Hall.’

She supplied, ‘Josie Langley.’ And now at the mention of the Hall she recalled the boy who had grown into the young man before her. ‘And you’re Bob Miller.’

He grinned delightedly. ‘That’s right. I thought I knew your face. O’ course, it’s been – how long? Over ten years?’

‘More like fifteen.’ Josie smiled in response to his grin. ‘I was about eight then.’ And she was twenty-three now, slender and long-legged, with hair glinting coppery in the sunlight.

‘That’s right,’ Bob agreed. ‘I was ten when my old man moved up to Yorkshire to work with his brother, my uncle.’

‘And you said you were going to be a sailor.’ She thought he looked fine in his uniform. The cap hid most of the shock of yellow hair but there was no concealing the bright, blue eyes.

‘Joined when I was seventeen,’ Bob replied absently, still amazed at how his childhood friend had grown into this pretty girl, neat and attractive in her nursemaid’s grey dress and white apron. ‘What about you?’

‘I work in the Urquhart house. My mam wanted me with her when I left school – and I wanted to be with her. So I started working for the Urquharts and I’ve been there ever since.’

‘How is your mother?’ asked Bob, and commiserated when Josie told him of Peggy’s death. He said, ‘My father died three years back and his brother went the year before. My mum didn’t have any relatives left but me so she moved down here and found a little house in Lambeth.’

They examined each other shyly as they talked. They made a handsome couple, the tall, tanned, good-looking young man and the slender, smiling girl. But the children, Hugh in his sailor suit and Louise in her cotton dress, had become restless. So they all walked, Bob and Josie talking until they paused to listen to the
oompah-oompah
of a little German band, then went on. When it was time for Josie to go home Bob lifted a finger to his cap in salute – and they agreed to meet again.

Over the next weeks they met whenever Josie had a half-day, or a few hours off – and Bob could get shore leave from his cruiser, which was being refitted in Chatham dockyard. They visited the zoo, and the museums when it rained, but mostly they walked, talked and laughed. Until one Sunday he took Josie home to meet his mother and to have tea. Dorothy Miller was obviously delighted with the girl. Then a week or so later Josie chanced to mention that she had given up her half-day one week, to cover for a girl who was not well, and so would have a full day off the following week.

Bob said, ‘Here, tell you what, how about a run down to the Hall? It would be a day out and we could see how the old place looks now.’

Josie knew how it looked because she went there every year when the Urquhart family visited. But she could see how eager Bob was and so she only laughed and protested, ‘All that way?’

‘It will only take an hour on the train – or less.’ And Bob pressed her, ‘My treat.’

‘Have you come into a fortune, then?’ Josie teased him, but wondering, because sailors were only paid a few shillings a week.

Bob shrugged that off: ‘I’ve done some long cruises and I’ve got some money saved. Don’t you worry. Well?’

Josie would never have considered going unchaperoned into the country with a young man but this was Bob, the friend of her childhood, and she gave no thought to propriety.

So they left Waterloo on a blazing June day. After a fast journey by train, and a slow one on a country bus, they walked the last miles to the Hall. They did not enter by the main gates where the keeper lived in his lodge. Instead they passed into the grounds through a farmer’s field, where black-and-white cows followed them, curious. They also took care to keep out of sight of the house and they did not see another soul.

It was noon when they arrived at the pool. Bob had removed his woollen jumper after leaving the bus to walk in his ‘flannel’, the short-sleeved sailor’s shirt. Josie, in a crisp, white blouse and wide straw hat, was still too hot. She had brought a light lunch of sandwiches for both of them, with a bottle of beer for Bob and ginger beer for herself. She laid the bottles in the pool to cool.

‘It’s just like that last summer.’ She took off her hat and set it aside.

‘It’s all o’ that.’ Bob wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and gazed yearningly at the pool, its surface moving slowly, eddying as the stream ran through it. ‘I could do with a swim now but I haven’t got a costume.’

‘That didn’t stop you before,’ Josie challenged. ‘You’re scared.’

‘So are you,’ countered Bob.

They laughed as they remembered that time when as children they had bathed naked. Then they were suddenly shy and Josie remembered that this was not just her childhood friend but a virile young man. She looked away and said, ‘Yes, I am.’

They laughed again then, and settled for paddling.

Lunch was eaten in the shade by the pool and both dozed for a while in the heat of the day. When Josie woke she found Bob watching her. She smiled at him and he came to her and kissed her. He whispered, ‘My ship’s bound for the Med in October. Will you marry me, Josie? Please?’

‘Oh, Bob.’ Josie clung to him. ‘Yes.’ She knew how she was going to miss him. ‘Yes.’ And she responded to his caresses on that warm summer evening, because she loved him and they were as good as married, riding with him on a tide of passion.

Bob bought Josie a ring that took most of his small savings. They planned a wedding in September but he came to the back door of the Urquhart house one evening in early August. Josie hurried him away into another doorway, out of sight of the house or prying eyes. ‘I told you not to come here, Bob. We’re not allowed “followers” hanging about.’

‘I’m not hanging about. I just had to see you. The ship’s sailing early. Not for the Med, this is just a shake-down cruise after coming out of the dockyard. I’ll only be away a few weeks, but I don’t know exactly when I’ll be back for the wedding.’

Josie peered at his gloomy face. ‘Well, we’ll just have to postpone it.’ She was miserable but saw he needed cheering, and he was the one going to sea. So she tucked her arm through his and told him, ‘I’ve got a half-hour or so. I’ll see you on your way.’ She saw him on to his train to Chatham, where his ship was lying, kissed him and told him, ‘I love you.’

It was two weeks later when his mother came to tell her that Bob had been lost at sea. They learnt later that he had been employed on boat-work in bad weather, had dived in to rescue a mate in difficulties and both had drowned. Josie recalled the boy who was Bob saying proudly when he was ten years old, ‘’Course I can swim! I’m going to be a sailor!’ Now she took Dorothy Miller to her room and they wept together. And Josie told her, ‘I’m expecting.’

Bob’s mother held Josie in her arms and said, ‘You call yourself Mrs Miller now. That’s what he wanted. You’ve got your mother’s ring what she left you. Put that on. And you come and live wi’ me. We’ll manage, the pair of us.’ And then hopefully, ‘And maybe later on you’ll be able to get some work to help out.’ Because her small pension would not keep both of them, let alone a baby, and their savings would not last long.

Josie would have to leave the Urquharts’ service but she had known that when she accepted Bob’s proposal. She had intended to leave on her marriage, not this way, but the result was the same. The Urquharts were sympathetic but there was no question of an unmarried, pregnant girl caring for their children. However, they gave her a good reference: ‘Mrs Josie Miller has given excellent service as kitchen- and housemaid, children’s nurse and governess and assisting the housekeeper.’

So Josie went to live in the little house in Lambeth, with its kitchen and scullery on the ground floor and two small bedrooms above, reached by a steep, narrow staircase. It was damp and cold because they had to be sparing with the coal they put on the fire, but Josie began to look forward and to sing again as she went about the house, awkwardly now with the child she was carrying. She knew the grim future that lay ahead of her as an unmarried mother but she faced it with courage. Then one day the singing was cut short.

Dorothy Miller heard the scream and then the bumping fall as Josie toppled down the narrow stairs. She called on the neighbours to help her and got Josie into bed, cared for her and cried with her when she told her, ‘You’ve lost the baby, love.’ She comforted her through those dark days: ‘Never mind, you’re young. It’ll soon be Christmas and a New Year, a new start.’

Josie managed to smile.

There was no bright beginning to 1908. Josie had recovered but early in January she found Dorothy Miller lying face down across her bed and unconscious. Josie ran for a doctor and he came in his puttering little motor car and told her, ‘Your mother-in-law has had a stroke.’ Dorothy was unable to walk, would be bedridden for the rest of her life. He wound up the polished brass starting handle of his car then drove away, and Josie was left to face up to her future. It was bleak. Dorothy would need a lot of attention and there was not much money, scarcely enough to feed the pair of them. But Dorothy had cared for Josie, now it was Josie’s turn.

She heard the old woman calling for her, her voice quavering now, and answered, ‘Coming, Mother!’

8

February 1908

‘Now then, gal! What can I get yer?’ Jerry Phelan eyed Josie where she stood on the other side of the counter. This was in the snug, a little room in his pub, the Red Lion, where his elderly women customers could sip their glasses of port, though younger women were not unknown there. If any girl entered the Red Lion alone he automatically suspected she might be a prostitute trying to ply her trade and would turn her away. But he thought this one was too quietly dressed for that, and she didn’t look the sort, so he suspended judgment for the moment and wiped his hands on his long, white apron.

‘Are you the manager, please, sir?’ Josie asked. She was breathless and flushed.