Mourning Doves (31 page)

Edith Mason came swiftly in, and looked round. ‘How pretty it all looks,’ she said, her eyes twinkling merrily behind gold-rimmed spectacles. ‘Do you mind if I have a look?’

‘Please do.’

Edith put down her doctor’s bag by Celia’s work table, took off her gloves and loosened a blue silk scarf which she was wearing. She proceeded to circle round, occasionally pausing to stare at a particular piece. She stopped in front of a bookcase in which Celia was displaying a collection of Victorian and Edwardian novels, many of them beautifully bound in leather, their titles in gilt. She laughed, and remarked, ‘I see many old friends amongst these.’

‘Are you looking for anything special?’

‘I actually wanted a really large desk for my consulting room. But you don’t seem to have one.’

‘Oh, but I do. I have Father’s desk. It’s in the back shed, however. Would you mind coming through to the back?’

‘Not at all.’

Celia shot the inside bolt on the front door, and then led her client through the back passage to the rear door.

‘Phew!’ exclaimed the doctor, as they passed the closed door of John’s workshop.

Celia laughed. ‘It’s Mr Philpotts with his French polishing. I’m sorry – it makes an awful smell.’

‘It can’t be very good for him. I hope he has his workroom well ventilated.’

‘Well, there are windows.’

They crossed the yard, and Celia unlocked and opened the double doors of the shed. In the poor light, she pointed out the desk.

It was rather dusty, so Celia pulled her little yellow duster from her pocket and ran it over the wood. She pointed out that it was double pillared with seven drawers, all with dovetailed corners. The pillars and the fronts of the drawers were elaborately carved. Round the top surface it was inlaid with mother-of-pearl in a pattern of lotuses. The writing area was covered in fine green leather embossed with a leaf-patterned edging in gold.

The drawer pulls were heavy brass, and Edith ran her fingers round one of them. ‘Hand thrown?’ she inquired.

‘Yes. It is certainly beautifully made, although I don’t think it is quite old enough to be classed as an antique,’ Celia said honestly. ‘My paternal grandfather brought it from Malaya.’

‘How much do you want for it?’

‘I am asking twenty-five pounds.’ She knew that a cheap new desk could be bought for about five pounds, and she held her breath, while Edith considered it.

‘It’s rather expensive,’ Edith said, running her fingers longingly over the exquisite mahogany. She sighed. ‘I would like to see it in a better light, before I decide.’

‘That could be arranged. If you would like to step in again tomorrow, I’ll ask Ethelred to move it into the shop. You would be able to see it in a good light there.’

‘Thank you. I would like that.’ She shrugged, and confided, ‘As you can imagine, I never know exactly when I will be free, but some time before you close, I’ll come over.’ She smiled at Celia, and added, ‘I love beautiful things round me. I’m using Father’s old desk at present. All the
drawers keep sticking, and the surface is stained beyond redemption. It doesn’t give a good impression – besides which,’ she said ruefully, ‘I have to see an awful lot of it, and I would like to have something good. You know, Father never cared about possessions, and with no mother in the house, there was no one to suggest anything better.’

Celia laughed. ‘People make do every day with things they don’t like, don’t they? And keep in store the really beautiful things they should be enjoying. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it for you until you come.’

The hint that it could be sold quite quickly was not lost on Edith. She thought that Celia was learning fast. She noted with some relief that the girl had lost the look of absolute despair which she had exhibited in her office.

The next day, the desk, in all its well-polished glory, stood in the window, its rich wood catching the afternoon sun, and when Edith saw it through the window, she knew that she wanted it very much, a fitting memento of a month when her practice had shown real growth. She dickered over the price, and Celia brought it down slowly to twenty pounds, agreeing reluctantly to a payment of ten pounds that day and ten pounds in fourteen days.

‘You don’t have to deliver it until I’ve paid the second instalment,’ Edith said encouragingly.

Celia looked at this lady who had, she felt, given her new life, and had a strong inclination to give her the desk. Common sense won, however, when she remembered that she had obligations herself. She responded by saying that she was sure she could trust Edith to pay, and that Ethelred would deliver it on a handcart the next day. ‘I’ll wrap it well in a quilt so that it doesn’t get scratched,’ she promised.

The doctor gave her a cheque for ten pounds, and Celia carefully wrote her first receipt. For years afterwards, she
said that this was the most exciting moment she could remember in all her life – with one exception.

After she had seen the doctor out, she ran through the shop, cheque in hand, to tell John Philpotts the good news.

After Ethelred had delivered the desk and while he still had the rented handcart, she closed the shop a little early, and together they walked over to the Aspens’ yard, to collect all the pictures that she had. As Ethelred lifted them out of the barn, she arranged them carefully, back to back, on the old quilt which she had spread over the handcart. Betty came over from her office to look at some of them, and heard about the impending visit of Alec Tremaine.

‘That’s just like John,’ she said. ‘He’d help anyone struggling.’

‘I hope his friend won’t mind helping me.’

‘I’m sure he won’t. He’ll probably be quite interested, if he’s an artist, as you say. I wonder if he’s Lady Tremaine’s son back from the war at last.’

‘I’ve no idea,’ replied Celia. Then she said slowly, ‘I believe that Mother is acquainted with a Lady Tremaine.’

It took three patient journeys with the handcart to transfer all the pictures to the shop, after which she sent Ethelred home and herself dusted them lightly with a feather duster, as she had seen Dorothy do, and then propped them up all round the shop, wherever they could be placed.

In order to save the train fare, she walked home.

As she crossed the road just before reaching Meols Station, she was nearly run down by a young woman on a bicycle. The woman swerved to avoid her, flung a laughing apology over her shoulder and continued merrily pedalling towards Hoylake.

Safely on the other side of the road, Celia, who had never ridden a bicycle in her life because her mother thought they were vulgar, watched her enviously.

With some of Dr Mason’s money, I’ll buy a second-hand bike, she promised herself. She said I should cycle. I won’t tell Mother. I’ll ask Eddie about it. She felt very bold and daring.

At home, Louise and Edna had already begun to eat dinner. They were both a little worried about her being late. ‘You should tell us when you expect to be late,’ her mother scolded.

‘Yes, Mama,’ she agreed, as she ran upstairs to wash her hands and tidy her hair before coming to the table.

As she snatched up her comb, she noticed the box of bricks she had earlier brought from her old trunk, and she picked up the box and took it down to the living room. She put it on the sideboard, and slid, breathless, into her chair.

She did not tell her mother about the sale. She thought it might distress her to know that her husband’s desk had gone for ever. Nor did she mention the impending visit of Alec Tremaine to see the pictures. She had begun to feel strongly that it was her shop and her business, and was nothing to do with her mother, who would, anyway, only criticise anything she did.

While they were drinking an after-dinner cup of tea fairly sociably round the fire, she told Louise about the box of bricks. She got up, put down her cup, and then emptied the bricks on to the tablecloth.

‘I thought, Mama, that you could spell a word or two by putting the bricks in a row, and then guide the men’s hands round the letters.’ She spoke eagerly, anxious to help.

‘Both of them must be able to read already, and if their fingers were sensitive enough, they could recognise the letters. For instance, you could spell
WALK
, and they would
possibly get the idea that they were going to go for a walk.

‘You said that you had been able to tell them a few things by outlining letters on the palms of their hands – but the bricks would be steadier, and they could run their fingers over them more than once, if they were in doubt.’

She turned the bricks over quickly, and said, ‘I don’t think there is a question mark – or an exclamation mark – but somebody who could whittle could make two bricks with them on. Then you could ask a question, like
WALK
? and they could say yes or no.’

She stopped and looked triumphantly at Louise.

It was Edna who realised the possibilities first. She said, ‘Celia! It’s wonderful – it would be a crack in a wall of silence for them.’ She stood looking at the little blocks, and then added thoughtfully, ‘You could get them to identify the letter on a block and then guide their fingers to the same letter in Braille – and with a bit of luck they would understand the connection. You could really teach them, Mama.’

Celia nodded quick agreement. ‘It would be awfully slow, I am sure. But, Mama, you could communicate quite a lot, if they can manage to read the letters.’

Louise was very tired; she was still shaky from the loss of Timothy and Paul. She did not answer immediately.

In addition, she had had an uncomfortable afternoon with the army doctor, when he had visited the nursing home. She had suggested that the two deaf-blind could be taken swimming, if an orderly who could swim went with each of them.

The doctor did not want to be bothered with wild ideas put forward by a stupid elderly widow, and had rudely quashed her suggestion as nonsense. He argued that all the men would then want to swim – and it would be impossible to ensure their safety in the water.

She had swallowed her anger, and had taken Richard and Charlie out for a walk on the seashore. As the tide
retreated it left firm, damp sand on which they were not likely to trip up, and they walked quite steadily, one on either side of her, arms linked with hers. They seemed to enjoy it.

If only the pair could have read Braille, she thought, their own ideas on swimming might have been conveyed to the doctor and helped to win the battle. A knowledge of how to read and write Braille was, she knew, the first essential. Edna and Celia did not need to remind her.

Cup in hand, she turned wearily and without hope.

Her mouth fell open. She put down her cup and got up to look at the bricks. She realised immediately that here at last was a simple way to communicate with young Richard and Charlie until they could learn Braille. As Edna had said, it could form the actual link which would enable them to do so.

Through trembling lips, she said, ‘Spell a word for me, Celia, and I’ll close my eyes and see if I can read it.’

Celia arranged the bricks to read
BLIND
, and with closed eyes Louise allowed her hand to be guided to them. At first she spelled it out as
BLINO
, but Celia shook her hand and took her fingers back to the beginning again, and the second time she read it correctly.

Mrs Lou stood looking at the word and then she cried, and they laughed and cried together.

‘I bet Eddie can carve you a question mark and an exclamation mark,’ Edna assured her mother. Like Celia, she had a blissful belief that Eddie Fairbanks could do anything.

When a very fit-looking man, trilby hat in hand, entered the shop, he found Celia on her knees sorting her mother’s Crown Derby dinner service for twelve into two sets for six. She had noticed that, in the hardware store down the road, china services were being sold in sixes, and she thought it might be easier to dispose of smaller sets. She had come in early to do this, and now she rose hastily from the floor, undoing her apron as she turned to her visitor.

She smiled, and said, ‘Good morning, Sir.’

‘Alec Tremaine, Ma’am, John Philpotts’ friend.’

‘How nice of you to come,’ she said, and held out her hand to be shaken. He took it carefully and shook it.

John Philpotts had told him, ‘She’s a little pet. So fresh and innocent. I don’t want her to be cheated, if she has something good to show you. Take care of her.’ And holding her hand and looking into a gentle pale face, Alec felt suddenly that he was going to enjoy helping her with her pictures very much. John was right – she looked like a real old-fashioned girl, and he astonished himself by thinking immediately that his mother was certain to approve of her. It was some time before he realised how quick a mind lay behind the calm blue eyes.

Unmarried, battle-scarred and weary after four years in the army, he had been thankful, at the age of thirty-three, to find a post teaching commercial art in a Liverpool college; it was a fairly new discipline. Before the war, he had been
quite successful as a watercolour artist and book illustrator.

Now, he began to fret that his knowledge might not be adequate to judge Celia’s collection of paintings. A quick glance round her showroom had told him that the contents were certainly not those of the usual second-hand shop, and this quiet little gentlewoman was certainly no ordinary second-hand shop owner.

Celia was equally unsure of herself. She turned a dining chair round for him to sit on, and then asked if he would like to take off his macintosh, since he was likely to be with her for some time.

He slowly divested himself of the garment and she fluttered to the back of the store to hang it up, nearly knocking over a pile of Crown Derby dinner plates. Then she realised that he would not sit down until she did, so she hastily got out another chair and sat on it.

Her hands modestly folded in her lap, she smiled shyly at him. He was a stolid, pleasant-faced man. His brown hair was close-clipped and had a few white hairs glinting in it. His face was clean shaven, deeply lined and ruddy from exposure. Military service had, presumably, given him his very upright posture. He spoke with the perfect pronunciation of a public school man.

She thought he was wonderful, a returned hero. As she carefully weighed him up, a wave of very odd sensations went through her. Though these made her feel a little unsteady, she led off the conversation like a good hostess, by inquiring how he would like to proceed.

Wrenching himself back from thoughts far removed from paintings, he said he would, first, like to walk round slowly and take a general look at the collection.

Not wishing to embarrass him by hovering behind him, she said she would finish sorting out the dinner service and put it away. He nodded, and, with hands clasped behind his back, he went slowly round the collection of paintings,
most of which were oils in heavily carved gold frames. Occasionally, he took a picture down and carried it to the window to take a particular look at it. Despite his solid weight, he walked lightly, she noticed.

After half an hour, she brought him a cup of tea. She boiled the water on a gas ring in a tiny washroom at the back of the shop. He thanked her absently, and continued his promenade, teacup in hand. While she waited, she sat down at her corner table to drink her own cup of tea and draw faces on the blotting paper.

She did not know how to bear the suspense in silence, and was thankful when a girl of about fifteen entered and began to look round.

Celia put down her cup, and went forward to ask her if she needed help.

‘I want a present for me mam,’ was the reply. ‘I thought you might have a nice ornament.’

Celia immediately opened the china cabinet and brought down a series of vases and small figurines. At two shillings each, the girl said they were too expensive. She could get similar ones down the road for sixpence.

‘Well, this one and this one are early Royal Doulton,’ Celia defended. But Royal Doulton meant nothing to the girl, and, after looking disparagingly at the various clocks in the shop, she walked out looking quite huffy.

A small burst of laughter from behind Celia, as she shut the door, lifted her low spirits.

Alec ventured a comment. ‘Bravo,’ he said. ‘I can see from your stock that you don’t need that kind of clientele. You need real collectors.’ Then he immediately regretted his impolite intrusion into what was essentially her business, not his.

Unruffled, she smilingly agreed with him. His comments made him suddenly more human to her. ‘I know, Mr Tremaine. You are quite correct. But I’m not sure how to let them know I am here!’

‘Ah, well, if you would like to, we’ll talk about that another time. I would be happy to make some suggestions, if you would permit it. Are you ready to talk about pictures?’

‘Indeed, yes.’ She went towards him eagerly, and they circled the shop together.

‘Some of the paintings have been done by amateurs and I suggest that they were, perhaps, framed as gifts to loved ones. I think you could sell them for a guinea or two, to people who want good frames, say, for mirrors or other pictures.’ He paused to look down at her, and asked, ‘Shall I put them on one side for you?’

Fearing that she herself might make an error in sorting the pictures, if she did it when he was gone, she agreed, and he stacked them neatly against the back wall.

When that was done, he told her, ‘Most of the others were done by local nineteenth-century artists – I recognise the names of some of them. They are not great paintings, but they were commissioned by someone with taste, and they are pleasant to look at. They are quite valuable, I think. Look at this one.’ He lifted one down to show her. It was a peaceful scene of Raby Mere, which had hung in the dining room of her old home.

‘It is nice, isn’t it? Father was rather fond of it.’

He carefully put it on one side, and picked up the next one, which was painted in the style of the Impressionists.

‘That’s called
Sunday Afternoon
,’ Celia offered. ‘I can’t think why. It’s mostly blurred.’

He smiled down at her. ‘It is, I think, quite good.’

They spent over an hour slowly going through the collection, until there were only two left. So that it could be seen particularly clearly, he propped up near the window the portrait of a young woman.

‘I may be wrong,’ he cautioned, ‘but I have an idea that this is a Ramsay, though the frame seems to cover the signature.’

‘Ramsay?’

‘He was an eighteenth-century Scottish artist, noted for his portraits of Scottish gentlefolk. If I am right, it might fetch a fair sum, particularly if it were shown in Edinburgh.’

‘Really? I think it’s a painting of one of my ancestors.’ Her pale-blue eyes had widened with astonishment. ‘That would be a wonderful help! Cousin Albert says I must accumulate capital, so that I can buy good replacement stock when it is offered. At the moment I couldn’t possibly buy anything.’

Alec murmured absently something about her having only just started out. Then he picked up the last painting, a seascape. ‘I kept this one until last, because I am almost afraid to raise your hopes too much.’

Celia’s heart gave a frightened thump. Then she realised what it was he was holding, and she said carelessly, ‘Oh, that’s the Turner. It’s awfully dirty, isn’t it? It’s called
Hoylake Sands
.’

Alec was so stunned at her remark that he nearly dropped the precious work.

‘You mean that you know it is a Turner?’

Fearful that she had said something wrong, she backed down and replied cautiously, ‘Well, that’s what I’ve always been told.’

Alec gasped. ‘By Jove! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I looked at it; I thought it must be simply a good copy.’

He went to the window and laid it in a clear shaft of light. Then he took a magnifying glass out of his pocket and studied it carefully.

Celia watched him, totally bewildered. She said, ‘Mother didn’t think much of it, but it fitted in in a spot by the breakfast room fireplace, and there it hung for years and years. That’s why it’s so dirty – from smoke and soot.’

Alec began to whistle under his breath. Then he asked, ‘Have you any idea how it came into the family?’

‘Well, when Great-aunt Blodwyn, my grandfather’s sister, came from Wales to my sister Edna’s wedding – she dislikes Mother, you must understand – I remember their quarrelling in the quiet, acid way that ladies sometimes do.’

Her laugh was rueful, as she glanced up at him. ‘They were sitting in the breakfast room having a morning glass of sherry.’ She stopped, and then said blankly, ‘I remember the day so well. Great-aunt Blodwyn had her arm round my waist as I stood by her chair.’

Alec Tremaine looked at the small, dainty person in front of him, and remembered some of John’s casual remarks about her. John had said cynically that she had probably been kept single so that she could care for her parents in their old age. It was a well-known custom much decried by the new Suffragette movement.

Celia realised that she had strayed a little from the question she was supposed to be answering, and went on quickly, ‘Anyway, I remember Great-aunt Blodwyn baiting Mother by saying that such a good painting should not be left where it would gather soot.’

It was Alec’s turn to chuckle softly, but he did not otherwise break into her story. In his mind’s eye, he saw the kind of petty cattiness that occurs between women with not enough to do to really occupy themselves.

‘Mother said it was a grubby old thing and she thought it was time it was thrown out and they bought something new. She never would throw it out, though, because Father was stuffy about these things – he liked old paintings and old furniture.

‘Then Great-aunt Blodwyn flared up and said it was treasured by her grandfather as the gem of his collection of paintings. It had been painted by a man called Joseph Turner – she said that her grandfather had commissioned it, when he went to visit his friend, Mr Fawkes of Farnley Hall in Yorkshire. The artist was also staying with Mr
Fawkes, and he did the painting while they were both there. Simple as that.’

Alec Tremaine plonked himself down on his dining chair. ‘Well, I’m damned!’ he exclaimed, and then immediately apologised for his bad language. With a sudden thought, he asked, ‘Do you know who Joseph Turner was?’

‘Not really. He must have been an artist. According to Great-aunt Blodwyn, her grandfather was always buying pictures from artists whom he had met – it was his interest – the artist could have been anybody.’

‘Turner was simply one of the greatest artists Britain has ever produced,’ Alec told her. ‘When I was studying, I spent a good deal of time examining his watercolours and engravings of them. I’ve seen many of his oils, too, of course.’

‘Good heavens!’ She hung her head and looked a little shamefaced. ‘I’m so terribly ignorant,’ she burst out. ‘Edna might have known who he was – she went to school and learned to paint.’ He sensed a bitterness in her tone.

He had noticed the pile of books on antiques amid the things lying on her work table. To comfort her, he made a slight gesture towards them and said, ‘By the look of your desk, you seem to be making up for lost time now.’

She nodded, her face sad. ‘I’m trying to.’

She looked so downcast that he said, ‘Don’t worry, Miss Gilmore. Both John Philpotts and I think the shop will be a success.’

What John had actually said was that the two sisters were unexpectedly enterprising. ‘They know they don’t know nothing, but they’ve got the guts to admit it – and they’ll learn; they don’t waste their time like so many are doing.’

‘I’m sure I’m making all sorts of mistakes,’ Celia said, almost as if she had read his mind.

He grinned, and got up briskly. ‘We all have to learn,’
he replied. ‘I never thought of teaching until this year.’ Then he gestured to the two paintings which he had specially picked out, and suggested, ‘If you would allow me to show these two to the head of my college, he might be able to suggest what their worth is, and the best way to dispose of them.’

She nodded, and smiled politely. ‘Please do.’ Despite the hopes he had raised of making some badly needed capital, all she could think of was that her ignorance had shamed her before this lovely man. After he had left, she spent some time sitting at her desk and going wistfully over every word he had said.

Also deep in thought, Alec walked over to his home in nearby Meols Drive to eat his lunch with his widowed mother. In the trenches, he and his fellow officers used to talk occasionally about being at home at their own fireside. Some of the men already had wives and small children, and they spoke longingly of the comfort of decent meals, warmth and affection. When they were very hungry, which was quite often, they planned their favourite meals, each man grinning and adding a bit to the feast until it became one enormous joke – and it was always homely meals that they longed for and for women, like wives, whom they knew well.