Mourning Doves (11 page)

After a two-year engagement, which both the Fellowes and the Gilmores felt was a respectable length of time, in 1912 Celia found herself, as chief bridesmaid, walking behind her sister up the aisle of the Church of St Mary the Virgin amid a gaggle of other young women, all giggling
behind their bouquets of yellow roses and maidenhair ferns.

She was so consumed by jealousy of her sister’s success that she was incapable of enjoying the ceremony or the reception at their house afterwards, and, for some time, she was referred to by those who had been present as ‘that sulky sister of Edna Fellowes’.

For months, Celia pestered her mother about when she would give a coming-out party for her. There was, however, always some reason why it could not be done, the final argument being, towards the end of 1914, that so many families were in mourning that it would be inappropriate to give such a party while the war lasted. A crushed Celia conceded defeat.

As she sat in the Liverpool train, Celia remembered all this. She wondered how she would feel when she met her sister. Edna’s experiences were so different from her own.

At least I’m not jealous any more, she considered with a faint smile. Edna lost her little Rosemary and now she’s lost her husband. I need a sister at the moment and, other than Mother, I must be the only person in the world who really does need her.

She hoped wistfully that sophisticated, elegant Edna would be as brave as Betty appeared to be. It would certainly help.

When, at Birkenhead Park, Celia changed from the cosy warmth of the steam train to an unheated electric train, she helped a young woman with two tiny children on to the latter, and the shivers of the children led to a polite conversation. The little family reminded her of Phyllis, who was far more of a sister to her than Edna had ever been, and of new-born Timothy George. Her morning had been so full that she had given no thought to the struggle her friend was probably having.

I should go this evening to see how they are, she reminded herself. With Edna to care for, however, and her mother’s probable complaints about her desertion of her during the day, it seemed doubtful if she would get the opportunity.

She sighed. Though she felt she had done quite well that morning, it had tired her. She had made an enormous effort to express clearly and concisely to the people she had met exactly what she wanted them to do; now she prayed that the hope of tap water that the plumber’s wife had given her would be realised.

I hope everything works, she thought anxiously. That the sweep and the plumber will come, as promised, that Dorothy and Mr Fairbanks got along together, and that Mr Aspen’s daughter gives me a modest estimate.

Her eyelids drooped with fatigue and, as the electric train sped through the tunnel, she began to doze.

She awoke when the train stopped at Central Station
with its usual sudden jerk, and the lady with the children smiled and said she hoped she felt better after such a nice nap.

A little bewildered, Celia helped her fellow travellers on to the platform, and then quietly followed them out of the station, up steep stairs and sloping passages until she found herself at street level.

She paused uncertainly at the station gate. Outside it, heavy drays lumbered past her, interspersed with cars driven by chauffeurs. Innumerable cyclists and pedestrians darted in and out between them.

‘Are you lost, duck?’

Celia jumped. Leaning against the stone gatepost of the station lounged a woman with a highly painted face beneath a purple veil draped round a purple hat.

A fallen woman! No one, except actresses and fallen women, made up their faces. Disconcerted, Celia simply looked at her.

The woman laughed. ‘Are you lost?’ she inquired again.

Celia swallowed, and said in a small scared voice, ‘I have to go to Lime Street Station, and I am not quite sure where it lies from here.’

The woman took her by the elbow and pointed her in the right direction. ‘Go up here and turn left. Five minutes’ walk. You’ll find it.’

Losing some of her fear, Celia said politely but shyly, ‘Thank you very much.’

The woman laughed again. ‘Go on with you, luv. You’re a nice girl. You shouldn’t be hanging around here.’ She gave Celia a little push, then leaned back against her pillar again.

Somewhat shaken, Celia took the route indicated. Amid the hurrying, indifferent crowd of pedestrians, she felt vulnerable and afraid. She had never walked alone in the city centre before and the fact that a fallen woman, as she called her, had actually addressed her had unnerved her.

It was with relief that she reached the huge entrance of Lime Street Station. Here she had, once more, to stiffen her resolve before she could waylay a porter to ask which platform the train from London would arrive at.

Without stopping his rapid scuttle towards a train already in, he told her. When she went to the platform that he had indicated, her entrance was barred by a ponderous, bewhiskered ticket inspector, who demanded her ticket.

Flushing nervously, she told him she was meeting her sister travelling on the train.

‘You need a platform ticket, Miss – or you could wait here for her.’

‘Where would I purchase a ticket?’

The man looked down at her superciliously as if she were sorely lacking mentally, and said, ‘At the ticket office, of course – or from the machine over there.’ He pointed to a red-painted machine against the far wall.

Confused and flustered, she looked at the machine and decided that modern machinery would be too much to face, and she went to the ticket office, where, for one penny, she received a grubby grey ticket. The porter at the gate gravely punched a hole in it and gave it back to her. She walked through to the platform and began to calm down.

The train was just coming in.

Hoping to find good tippers, porters were running beside the first-class carriages ready to help with luggage. People meeting the train engulfed Celia, who, being small, was soon elbowed away from the train itself. Doors swung open. Men and women descended and were captured by porters, some of whom had trolleys on which to transfer steamer trunks carried in the luggage van at the rear of the train.

At the back of the crowd, Celia sought frantically for Edna, hoping to see her standing in the doorway of one of the carriages. She stood on tiptoe, and a man’s voice
behind her said, ‘Wait for a minute or two, Ma’am, and the crowd will clear.’

She turned, and nearly knocked a man off his crutches. His blue hospital uniform failed to disguise his fragile thinness. Not much taller than she was, incapacitated by his crutches, he certainly did not need to be pushed and shoved by a thoughtless crowd.

Celia conjured up a smile for him, and stepped to the side of him, as she replied, ‘That sounds very sensible. I am looking for my sister.’

‘I come out to meet me mate. He’s bein’ discharged from a military hospital in London – they can’t do nothing more for him.’

Celia’s sympathy was immediately aroused. ‘Is he very badly hurt?’ she asked.

‘Well, they’ve patched him up, he says. His shoulder were smashed and he lost an ear as well. A bit scarred and his hearing’ll never be the same. And he can’t use what’s left of his right arm.’ The man’s expression was suddenly bleak, and Celia realised that he was much younger than he had first appeared to be. Eighteen or nineteen, she guessed.

‘And you?’ Her tone was gentle.

‘Me?’ He looked down at his crutches. ‘I’ll be throwing these away soon, I hope. They say I’ll limp always. But I’ll be able to walk, thanks be.’

‘Good. Where did you serve?’

‘Messpot, Ma’am.’

Mesopotamia. Another place of death, another name for sorrow nowadays. ‘I’m glad you got back here safely,’ Celia said with feeling.

‘Thank you, Ma’am.’

As the wounded man had forecast, the crowd was, indeed, thinning. When a large trolley of luggage was pushed away by a straining porter, a tall, elegant woman in black with a black veil over her face was suddenly
revealed. She gestured imperiously to a porter, who came to her immediately.

Celia had not expected to have difficulty in recognising Edna. It had not occurred to her that almost every woman on the train would be dressed in mourning and that a number of them would be veiled. The gesture to the porter was so completely Edna, however, that she smiled again at the wounded soldier, said she hoped he would find his friend, and pushed her way purposefully through a loose group of children, her normal diffident good manners forgotten, in her fear of missing her sister.

‘Edna,’ she called and ran the last few steps towards her.

Edna said to the porter, ‘I have luggage in the van.’ Then, at the sound of Celia’s voice, she swung round and said, ‘Oh, Celia! Where’s Mother?’

Celia stopped. How do you kiss somebody with a thick veil over her face, when no attempt is made to lift it and greet you?

Edna settled it by saying, ‘We have to go down to the luggage van. I have three trunks.’ The porter turned his trolley and walked briskly towards the end of the train, followed by Edna. Nonplussed, Celia dodged between passengers going the other way, and followed her.

The porter was given Edna’s name and climbed into the van to search for her luggage. Edna turned back to Celia. ‘You didn’t answer me. Where’s Mother? Is she ill?’

Bewildered and hurt by her sister’s indifference, Celia straightened her hat, which had been knocked awry during her struggle in the crowd. Before she answered, she had to search for words.

‘Mother is not feeling very well, as you can imagine,’ she managed to say. ‘We are having difficulties about Father’s estate, and she had to go to the bank this morning. So I volunteered to meet you.’ She tried to smile at the veil.

‘I see. I would have imagined that a bereaved daughter was more important than a bank.’ She called up to the
porter in the van. ‘Not that one – the green leather one behind it.’

Celia began to tremble. The fear of a panic attack, there on the station, almost brought one on. Edna was right, of course. She was more important – but the situation was hard to explain in one or two words on a busy station.

She took a big breath, while Edna scolded the porter for not lowering the expensive trunk down on to the platform more carefully. Then she said, ‘Well, things have been terribly complicated for Mother and me. I’ll explain it all when we are in the taxi.’ At the same time the train made a big chuffing sound, as it prepared to reverse itself away from the platform.

‘What did you say?’ Edna asked, her voice like a schoolmistress demanding a response from a mumbling child.

Celia made another effort and repeated her remark. A second and a third trunk were added to the first, with sharp admonitions to the porter to be careful. Then Edna ordered the long-suffering man to find them a taxi, which he did.

After he had heaved two trunks on to the luggage platform beside the taxi driver, the porter pushed the third trunk into the wide passenger section. Because Edna was fiddling for change in her handbag, he gave Edna’s hat box and small jewel case to Celia to hold.

Edna pressed some change into his hand. He touched his cap and said resignedly, ‘Thank you, Ma’am.’ Celia guessed that she had not tipped him enough. He then held the taxi door open so that the ladies could step in.

As the taxi jerked forward, Edna gave the driver her mother’s address. Celia closed her tired eyes. She hoped her Mother would not be hurt by Edna’s distant manner.

Edna settled herself in her seat and threw back her veil. Celia felt the tiny movement and opened her eyes. She half-turned to look at her sister.

She was shocked.

A gaunt, yellow visage had been revealed. The hazel eyes,
though still quite beautiful, were sunken in black sockets, the chin was long and bony, like their father’s had been. The skin was yellow and wrinkled, like that of a much older person. Deep lines between the heavy black eyebrows added to the woman’s general air of irritability. As Celia stared at her, she sensed, however, a terrible exhaustion behind the irritability.

‘What are you staring at?’

‘You have changed quite a lot,’ Celia replied honestly. ‘I suppose I have, too.’

‘In the awful climate which I have endured for the last seven years, one expects to change.’ Edna drew off her gloves, to reveal hands equally yellow and shrivelled, though still slender and still graced by the magnificent engagement and wedding rings which Celia had, long ago, envied so much. ‘One gets fevers so often that they weaken one.’

Edna leaned back in the taxi seat and gazed out at the bustling, black-clad pedestrians in Lime Street, many of them holding black umbrellas to protect themselves from a sudden drizzle of rain. After the brightly clad, motley crowds of Salvador and Rio, they looked like participants in a huge funeral. Seeing them, Edna felt so filled with anguish that she did not want to face the remainder of her family.

It had been bad enough dealing with Papa and Mama Fellowes’ grief at the loss of their only son and their concern for her widowhood. As if she cared a hoot about Paul – a domineering man, a selfish man at best, a bully determined that she should bear more children.

That, she thought, had been a fight to the finish, because, after Rosemary, she was not going to go through the loss of another child; he had been furious and had taken a Brazilian mistress. She had wished him dead many a time, so that she could be free to be honestly and openly in love
with his secretary and occasional translator, Vital Oliveira.

Dear patient Vital, a small man, a nobody but infinitely lovable. Her whole body longed for him.

Amongst the Fellowes family, her despondency and tears had been assumed, naturally, to be for Paul, not from having, perforce, to say goodbye to an almost equally distraught Vital. Both were sufficiently realistic to know that it was highly unlikely that they could ever arrange to be together again, and it had hurt – God, how it had hurt – to part, with that feeling of finality.

Paul was for the first part of their residency in Salvador often away from home, as a great dam was built to create power for electricity. Vital coped with his correspondence and records at the city end of his work. For Paul’s convenience, he lived in the same great house.

Without any knowledge of Portuguese, Edna had been left in Salvador to run their home as best she could. It was Vital who at first translated her orders to the servants, who saw that they did not cheat her, who found her a doctor to supervise her confinement. He brought her an English/Portuguese dictionary, for which she thanked him gratefully, and he recommended a teacher.

Rosemary died when her father was away from home. It was Vital who, silently in the background of her distress, kept the house servants in order, found a gentle nun to sit with her and himself arranged the funeral.