main objection to continuing to come here for holidays.’ She began to whimper, as she recalled with anguish the handsome water closet which Timothy had had installed in their West Derby home.
‘Perhaps we could get a proper bathroom put in here,’ Celia suggested doubtfully, as she shut the door firmly on the obnoxious little hut. Though she had long since learned that, to survive, she must bow her head and do whatever her parents decided, even her broken spirit had, on inspecting such primitive sanitary arrangements, begun to feel a sense of revolt.
After several days of being confined indoors, the fresh air was reviving Louise, and she looked around her, and sighed. She replied quite coherently, ‘I don’t think we could put in a water closet, without piped water and drains.’ Then she exclaimed with something of her normal impatience, ‘What a mess! I can’t imagine what kind of a tenant must’ve been living here. Mr Billings must have been very careless about his selection of one.’
Celia contemplated the jungle of weeds and sprawling bushes round her. ‘Did he pay the rent? The tenant, I mean,’ she asked practically.
Her mother shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Your father took care of these things.’
Celia turned to stare at the back of the house. The roof looked all right, no slate tiles missing and the chimneys were all intact, as far as she could judge. Her eyes followed the ridge of the roof, and she remembered suddenly that there was another house attached to theirs.
‘Do you own the house next door, Mother? I can see that the other side of the hedge has been trimmed, and there are curtains in the bedroom windows – and smoke is coming from the chimney. Someone must live there.’
Her mother looked up. ‘No, I don’t own it. My father bought this house simply as a summer cottage, rather than as an investment, and when he died he left it to your Aunt Felicity.’
Anxious to encourage her mother to take an interest in anything, Celia asked, ‘Who does own it?’
‘A Mr and Mrs Lytham bought the other side. I used to play with their children.’ Louise’s expression softened, and she added wistfully, ‘We had some lovely times, playing in the sand dunes and paddling in the sea. I wonder what happened to them?’
Celia forced a smile. ‘How nice that must have been.’ Then she looked at her brooch watch. ‘Perhaps we had better lock up, Mother, and go to have a talk with Mr Billings. He could advise us about repairs.’
Her mother nodded and they retraced their steps to the house, ruefully brushing down their long skirts. Even Celia’s ankle-length, tailored skirt had caught in the undergrowth and had burrs and bits of leaves and seeds clinging to it.
Celia locked the back door and they walked slowly and dismally through the house, leaving muddy tracks behind them.
While Celia turned to secure the inner front door, Louise proceeded slowly down the front steps. She suddenly let out a frightened little cry, ‘Oh!’
Celia spun round.
Standing in the middle of the red-tiled path was a tall thin man. As the women stared at him, he raised his cap and bowed. ‘Good afternoon,’ he greeted them politely.
Confronted by a man, both women were suddenly acutely aware of how isolated the cottage was.
Walking down the lane to it, they had passed only one other cottage, a squat little dwelling with a thatched roof. It had, Louise told Celia, been lived in for centuries by a family of fishermen. Now, they stared uneasily at someone who seemed to have sprung from nowhere.
‘Good afternoon,’ responded Celia nervously, while her mother stiffened, as she catalogued the man as no gentleman, despite his courteous greeting. The lanky man’s grey hair was roughly cut and framed a lined, weather-beaten face. He wore a striped union shirt without a collar; a red and white cotton handkerchief was tied round his neck. His wrinkled, old-fashioned moleskin trousers, held up by a worn leather belt, were stained with dried mud.
As he looked down at her, Louise’s silence did not seem to disconcert him in the least. His faded blue eyes held the hint of a smile, as he said, ‘You must be Mrs Gilmore. The gentleman as was here to take a quick look at the cottage for you said as you would be coming. He come out late Tuesday. Nearly dark, it was.’
A quiet rage against Cousin Albert rose in Louise, blotting out all sense of fear or grief. So, during his stay with her, he had not spent all his time in Timothy’s office checking over with the clerk just exactly what the financial situation was; he had also been out here, planning to condemn her to live in this awful place. He knew precisely what it was like.
With sudden understanding she realised how she had been manipulated. Albert and Mr Barnett had made her sign away her present home.
It was so unfair. They should have explained to her what she was about to do. Consulted her. The fact that the outcome would probably have been the same did not make any difference. She had not been asked what she felt about moving out here.
Could she not have sold this horrible cottage and bought another tiny house in a decent, civilised Liverpool street?
No time had been allowed her to recover from her bereavement, she raged; there had been no understanding that she was distraught with grief.
She was healthily furious, not only with Albert and Mr Barnett, but also with Timothy.
Timothy might have had enough sense to tell her that she owned their home, when he had originally transferred it.
Unless he had not trusted her? What a dreadful thought!
That was it. He must have felt, like Cousin Albert, that she was not capable of dealing with the ownership of such a valuable property; in transferring the ownership to her he must simply have been ensuring that no creditor of his could ever seize his home.
Men were like that, she felt with sudden, bitter understanding of the helplessness imposed on women.
She drew herself up to her full height, and replied frigidly to the stranger. ‘Yes, I am Mrs Timothy Gilmore.’
‘And the young lady?’
‘My daughter, Miss Celia Gilmore.’
The man smiled down at the tiny younger woman. Framed by untidy blonde hair, her face had the whiteness of skin never exposed to sunlight. Her loose, black-belted jacket and full skirt were relieved only by a white blouse. A tiny gold cross and chain glittered on a blue-white throat. A wide-brimmed black hat, worn squarely on her head, did nothing to improve her looks. A proper little mouse, her mam’s companion-help, he judged her, but probably amiable enough to be a good neighbour. ‘Nice to know yez, luv,’ he said warmly.
Celia smiled nervously in return. She sensed that the old man approved of her. It felt nice; she rarely got approval from anybody. As her mother’s patient shadow, she was usually barely noticed.
Their visitor pointed an arthritic finger at the house next door, and, as if taking it for granted that the ladies would be moving into the cottage they had just inspected, he said, ‘I’m your neighbour. Me name’s Eddie Fairbanks. Was head gardener to the earl till he sold the family home to be a nursing home for wounded soldiers. Proper kind to me, he was. Served him forty years I did, ever since I were a lad of ten, so I was close to retirement, anyway. He give me the cottage rent free for me lifetime and me wife’s lifetime – ’cos, he said, I designed one of the best rose gardens in the north for him, and he loved roses. He hoped the servicemen would enjoy the garden. He lives in London now.’ He paused to take a breath, while the two women stared at him. Since they did not say anything, he went on, ‘My Alice passed away six years ago, so I manage by meself.’ He paused again, as if expecting some response from Louise, but when there was none, he asked, ‘Would you like a cuppa tea? The kettle’s already hot. That house must’ve been cold when you went in