Birdcage Walk (11 page)

“Here, it’s not that George Woolfe, is it? You know the one I mean. He likes you, I know he does. I meant to say but it went clean out of my head.”

Charlotte kept her eyes cast down and shrugged.

“Quiet sort he is, but ever so polite,” continued Annie thoughtfully. “Lives on Wiltshire Row with his dad and sister, the mother dead last year. Funny woman, always had a face on her, and people talked about her going behind her old man’s back, you know. Can’t imagine why anyone would’ve with her, she always looked like she could smell something bad. I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, though.

“We saw him when we were cleaning those windows the other day after that terrible fog had got them so filthy. After you’d gone in, he asked if he might take you out some time, ever so shyly, and I said he should ask you. I tried to tell you about it at the time but you’d got the hump and gone upstairs, do you remember? Shall I have a word with him for you? Leave it to you two and we’ll be waiting forever.”

Charlotte adopted a pained expression that turned into a laugh as she caught sight of Annie’s evident pleasure in the scheme. “Oh god, Annie, don’t start interfering, will you? I’d die if you said something, I’ve only spoken two words to him in my life. I never said I liked him anyway, you’re getting carried away because you don’t want me to fret about Joe.”

Annie dunked the last of her peeled potatoes in the water and dried off her hands, her face wreathed in smiles. “You can rely on me, Lotts. I’ll be delicate about it. Look, I liked Joe, but who knows how long he’s going to be out there and, let’s face it, the feelings were more on his side than yours. Much more on his side. I’m fed up with seeing you moping about, tripping over your bottom lip. Why not have a bit of fun before you get married? I don’t think I did much and it seems a shame now. Not that I’d swap my Ted and the little one for nothing but I don’t like to see you mooning over someone you can’t see, and who you weren’t that struck on when you could.”

Unable to argue against Annie’s logic, Charlotte extracted a promise from her sister that she would say nothing to George Woolfe or anyone else and then changed the subject. As Annie chattered on about something else, Charlotte went back to turning over her own thoughts.

It was true that Joe was growing ever more indistinct in her mind. What there was left of him seemed increasingly like a person she’d heard about second-hand; on a continent she would never visit, dressed up in a uniform she’d never seen. George Woolfe, however, she could picture with clarity. She couldn’t recall the exchange outside, when she was soaping down the drab window frames, without acute embarrassment. Annie had been making fun of her, it was true, but there hadn’t been call to run off like she had. He would think she was given to putting on terrible airs. She was reluctant to admit it, especially to Annie and have her crowing about it, but the thought of someone new excited her. Of course she felt bad for Joe, but Joe wasn’t here. And she had never asked him to buy her that ring.

* * *

That was back in spring, and now she and George had been stepping out for more than six months. Leaving Annie to her careful preparation of the beef tea, Charlotte went upstairs to retrieve the tin box from where she’s pushed it right under the bed. It was cold in the bedroom, no fire had been lit in there all day, and she could see her breath as a ghostly plume in front of her face. An old blanket hung over the window to keep out the cold blocked the paltry light from outside. She’d forgotten to bring a candle up with her, but the gloom excused her from re-reading Joe’s letter. She added it to the top of the small pile and retied the slender ribbon.

Then, before she could think too much about it, she slid the small garnet ring off her finger, easy in the chill of the room, wrapped it in a clean handkerchief and placed it in the box with the letters. She’d kept wearing the ring out of habit and George had never thought to ask where, or who, it came from. Shutting the lid with a dull clang, she pushed it back under the bed out of sight, the thin metal scraping over the rough floorboards.

As it came to rest against the skirting board, Charlotte heard the front door slam and the answering rattle of the windows in their warped sashes. A cold draught raced up the stairs to meet Charlotte as she heard the low rumble of Ted’s voice. She’d forgotten he would be back for his lunch today, having gone out for an early shift before even Annie had risen. Charlotte stopped at the top of the stairs and strained to hear their words, knowing it was too late to ask Annie not to say anything about the letter. Some strong instinct within her didn’t want Joe mentioned to Ted, not at the moment. It was as she began to descend the stairs, realising her only chance was to try and signal to Annie, that she heard the unwelcome words.

“Still getting letters from him, is she?” Ted said, his voice too slow and deliberate for someone who should have been disinterested in this nugget of information. “I thought the Bruce boy was long gone, forgotten as soon as Woolfe turned her head.”

“Now, Ted, it wasn’t like that,” Charlotte heard Annie say. “Lottie was moping about something rotten after Joe went, you remember. But she needs some happiness in her life and George seems like a good man. He’s twenty-one, you know, hardly a boy.”

Charlotte heard Ted lower himself heavily into his customary chair at the table.

“So what did our brave little soldier have to say for himself, then?” he said. “Coming home, is he? Making sure she’s still here for him to come back to?” He laughed, his hand slapping the table in appreciation of his own wit.

Not wishing to overhear any more, Charlotte descended the rest of the stairs and forced herself to sit down opposite Ted, though she refused to catch his eye. Instead she looked over in Annie’s direction pointedly. Annie, reddening as she realised her mistake, busied herself with the beef tea, and the potatoes meant for Ted’s lunch, the simmering water they sat in topped with a thin grey scum.

After a long silence, Charlotte picking at a knot of wood in the table, Ted spoke out, apparently unable to keep quiet any longer. “I hear Joe Bruce has written you a letter,” he said. “I bet you weren’t expecting that, eh? Still in one piece, is he?”

Charlotte wanted to ignore him but knew it would be more trouble in the end. “Yes, he’s alright and I was glad to hear but, no, I wasn’t expecting him to write again.”

“Coming home in time for Christmas, I hear.” Before she spoke, Charlotte glanced up at Annie again, who looked sheepish.

“So he says. He’s hoping to be back in time, and he’s due it, but they can’t promise anything. His ma will be pleased if he is home, I’m sure.” On the periphery of her vision, she could see Ted smile.

“There’s a piece of luck for you, eh?” he said. “Two men in time for Christmas. You’ll enjoy that, won’t you?”

Charlotte scraped her chair back and walked out, keeping her chin high so Ted wouldn’t think he’d rattled her. “I’ll see to the baby,” she said over her shoulder at Annie.

The baby was asleep and Annie wanted him left but she let her sister go without another word, feeling she’d probably said enough.

As Charlotte headed up the stairs, she was relieved to hear Ted complaining about the hours he’d been given on the railways next week. She wondered exactly where Joe was now. Who knew how long letters took to reach her from Africa? Perhaps he was already aboard a ship, bound for English shores? Though she was glad that he had so far escaped any injuries, the thought of him drawing ever closer to Hoxton from across the seas gave her a strange feeling of unease deep in the pit of her stomach.

George had just brought down the last tea chest from the attic. Mrs. Drew had set aside a dozen of them to be carried down in turn and then stood at the foot of the stairs directing proceedings while George toiled up and down. That day he had made sure he was wearing one of his better shirts, and the trousers he’d worn to his mother’s funeral. Grappling with the old chests in the attic, his eyes watering and his nose prickling in the clouds of disturbed dust, he tried not to imagine Cissy’s face when she saw the state of him.

“We have made excellent progress,” cried Mrs. Drew as George straightened up wearily. They were standing in the wide hallway with the chests around them in untidy ranks upon the polished tiles. Clemmie was in her room working on a French translation, though she had found numerous excuses to come out and dance about her mother and George, peering into each chest as it was set down. Missing George’s tread on the stairs she appeared again now, twirling the end of her long plait around her fingers.

“My dear, you can’t possibly have finished yet,” said Mrs. Drew, doing her best to look cross. “You’ve been out on the stairs more than at your desk.”

“But I thought you might need some help going through the boxes now, mama,” said Clemmie in a pleading voice.

“Well, I suppose so,” Mrs. Drew relented. “Some of these things will need to go back up to the attic—labelled this time, of course—most of the books can be put on the shelves in the library, and the rest can go to the parish. George, you will be a great help when it comes to the books that need shelving. Some of them will need to go very high up and, though we have steps, I wouldn’t like Clemmie or I to be clambering around up there.”

“I can help too,” said Clemmie. “I’ve used the steps before. Papa lets me.”

“That he may, but your father is not here now. George will do the job for us very well while your feet remain on God’s earth, my dear. Isn’t that right, George?”

George nodded eagerly and, behind her mother’s back, Clemmie rolled her eyes at him. He struggled to keep a straight face and cleared his throat to cover it.

The afternoon was slipping past faster than George would have liked, the light in the hallway diminishing a little more each time he glanced up at the fanlight above the front door. Mrs. Drew had once more fetched a cushion to kneel on, but soon complained that the tiles were too hard and cold. George was instructed to bring out a small nursing chair for her to sit on and she sank into it gratefully. Before long, Milly appeared to light the gas lamps in the hall, turning them up as high as they would go.

In truth, Mrs. Drew did not need much help for this part of the task, though she declared she needed the company to stop her from giving it up altogether. A pattern soon emerged; Clemmie holding up each item in turn for her mother, who signalled whether it should be put in the pile for the parish, the library or the attic. George perched awkwardly on his haunches, trying not to fidget despite the icy sting of pins and needles in his feet. He was afraid that if he drew too much attention to himself then he would be sent home, no longer needed that day. However, as the pile of books bound for the library’s uppermost shelves grew, he tentatively reached out to one. Clemmie smiled at him in encouragement.

“Oh yes, you must have a look, George. If you see anything you’d like to copy then put it to one side. Perhaps there’ll be some time later, don’t you think, mama?”

Mrs. Drew was leafing through a photograph album, holding it close to her face so she could make out the faded figures.

“Goodness, I think these must be of your father as a boy, Clemmie. I’ve never seen them before. He was a handsome one, even then.” She smiled to herself. “Now what were you saying, my dear?” She looked up expectantly.

“About the books, mama. Didn’t papa say George might look at them?”

Her thoughts still on the album, its spine brittle and flaking with age, Mrs. Drew looked for a moment at George as though he was a stranger who had just materialised in her hall. Then her face cleared and she smiled again.

“Oh yes, the captain thought that as long as you were very careful, then you might have a closer look at one or two. Of course there are some that are very fragile so it’s best to leave those be. But yes, perhaps when the shelves are in order, and you’ve brushed yourself off in the kitchen, you might stay awhile and do some drawing, if you’d like.”

“I would like that, Mrs. Drew,” said George, nodding. “Thank you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many books in one place. I won’t know where to start.”

Another couple of hours passed before Mrs. Drew was satisfied that each chest had been thoroughly sorted. Despite the warm glow of the lamps, George had grown a little cold from the draught seeping under the front door and was eager to stretch his stiff limbs. Three tall stacks of books had by this time been set aside for the study, volumes that were deemed too precious or important to the family to go elsewhere. George began carrying them through in piles, Clemmie a well-meaning hindrance as she skipped back and forth with one at a time.

After the hall, the air in the study felt like a bath to George in his thin shirt, almost liquid in its warmth. Milly had lit a fire hours before and kept it well stoked in the meantime. The red wallpaper had deepened to claret as evening had fallen outside. George could just see the outline of trees at the bottom of the garden, their nearly bare limbs black and angular against the louring sky. Milly bustled in and turned up the lamps, their heat shadows shimmering high up the walls. Going over to the window, she closed the heavy curtains and shut out what was left of the day. Giving George a sceptical look, she left the room.

Clemmie had darted upstairs to fetch her French book, having sought permission from her mother to work on it in the study, while Mrs. Drew was still in the hall, and could now be heard discussing dinner with Milly. Suddenly alone, George looked about him and tried to absorb every detail of the room. Now that the chill night had been banished by the heavy drapes, the room seemed to glow like the fire at the centre of it. The only sounds were the occasional shifting of hot coals and the soft rasp of burning gas. One entire wall was given over to shelves of books that reached up to the ceiling, the red and gold of their bindings in perfect harmony with the rest of the room. In one corner, close to the desk, a console table held a tray upon which stood a crystal decanter and similarly etched tumblers. Inside the decanter was a deep golden liquid George thought must be whisky. He thought that if he had a room such as this he would never again feel dissatisfied or angry. It would be impossible to sit at the great oak desk on an evening close to Christmas, a glass of Scotch in hand, the other resting on the thick, creamy blotter, and not be utterly contented.

Just as he was wondering whether he dared go and sit at the desk itself, Clemmie burst in.

“It’s lovely in here with the fire lit, isn’t it?” she said, looking about her. “I always sit in here with papa when he’s home. He doesn’t mind if I stay quiet.”

She put her books down on a low round table and went to the bookcases.

“Did you see the steps?” she asked, pulling at a portable half flight of stairs with a brass rail. In response, the steps swung easily across the width of the bookshelves, castors apparently well oiled. “You’d never get all the way up there without these.”

George put his boot on the bottom step of varnished wood and felt it shift slightly under his weight. He didn’t much like heights, though he had no intention of letting on to the two ladies. As he went gingerly up, Mrs. Drew came in and, between her and Clemmie, they began handing up the lighter books to George at the top of the ladder. He soon got used to the sensation of being nearer the ceiling than the floor, and it wasn’t long before all the books had been neatly arranged.

“Did you remember to keep any out?” asked Clemmie from below. He had kept a couple back, both of them with large plate sections, but another now caught his eye. It was a larger book that wouldn’t have fitted on the shallower shelves high up. Its dark green cover contrasted elegantly with the curlicued lettering picked out in what George suspected was real gold leaf.

“Do you think I might look at this one?” he said shyly, pulling it out for Mrs. Drew below.

She peered at it and then nodded. ‘I don’t see why not. After all, how long has it sat gathering dust with no one to admire it? Come on down now. Give it to me while you go and dust yourself off.’

When he returned, hands red from being scrubbed with the coarse brush Milly had pointedly given him in the kitchen, someone—he suspected Miss Clemmie—had placed the green book on a round table close to the fire, alongside her own French work. Two chairs had been pulled up and a lamp moved so it illuminated the space. Next to the green book was a newly sharpened pencil. For an instant, George thought the afternoon would be made perfect if he could only work at the captain’s desk, but he dismissed the thought immediately, feeling guilty for being greedy.

“Do you need anything else?” asked Clemmie at his elbow, looking thrilled that she had orchestrated what she had promised weeks before. “Mama says I can do my French here.” She sat down and drew in her chair excitedly, her cheeks pinker than usual in the firelight.

George calculated that he had only an hour or so before the Drew’s dinner time which, fortunately for him, was later than in his own household. Cissy would just have to save his portion of the meal. Besides, he thought he would be too full of the afternoon’s experiences to eat much anyway.

Mrs. Drew came in then, Milly struggling behind her with the nursing chair. George sprang up to take it from her and placed it next to the fire, earning him a tight smile from the maid.

“All this upheaval today, gracious me!” cried Mrs. Drew. “I think I will sleep quite soundly enough tonight without my draught. Milly, fetch my sewing basket. I won’t be the only one without honest employment here.”

Though he had long anticipated the scene, in the event George found he couldn’t get much drawing done. The plates section in the green book was finer than he could have imagined and he savoured each page in turn, turning them over with a careful hand. After nearly half an hour, George completely absorbed in the delicate illustrations and even Clemmie apparently lost in her French, Mrs. Drew suddenly put down her embroidery hoop.

“George, my dear, if you want some paper to draw on you need only ask. My husband is bound to have some plain writing paper that will do.” She looked at him quizzically over her half-moon spectacles.

Reddening, George shook his head. “Oh no, I’ve got my sketchbook with me, Mrs. Drew. I was just enjoying looking at the pictures, if I’m honest. This book is far better than the ones I’ve worked with at the print.”

Nevertheless he went and got the little sketchbook from his jacket pocket and dutifully started to copy one of the plates, a great tropical flower the colour of marmalade. Mrs. Drew nodded approvingly at him and leaned forward to look at the lines he’d so far drawn in. He had to fight the urge to cover them with his hand out of sheer embarrassment but after a tense moment she sat back and smiled.

“You’re really very good, George,” she said. “And you’ve only been at it for a few minutes. Ah! What it must be to have a great talent. I have tried to paint and draw on many occasions but I have been forced to conclude that, at least artistically, I am a lost cause. Whether I’ve attempted flowers like yours or people, they all come out much the same: a smudged, indecipherable scribble. I found the experience so dispiriting that I’ve given it up for good. You, however, must never stop. What a waste it would be otherwise.”

Mrs. Drew picked up her embroidery hoop again as George nodded his thanks, well aware that his cheeks had deepened to scarlet. Clemmie, apparently understanding his embarrassed pleasure, kept her own eyes on her page.

All too soon, a brittle tinging sound from the direction of the mantelpiece told George that his hour was up. Reluctantly, he shut the large green book and closed his own sketchbook. What he had done was rough, but he could work on it further at home; the image was burned into his mind after staring at it so intently. Perhaps he would invest in a small box of paints to capture the rich colours of the original. Though he wouldn’t have swapped the last hour for the world, he had been too self-conscious to enjoy it as much as he thought. However, the afternoon was his as a memory and he knew he would relive it many times over in the days to come.