Authors: Margaret Dickinson
Eveleen glanced out of the window at the workshops. ‘He hasn’t many of his own workers left now, has he?’ she asked quietly.
Bridget shook her head. ‘No, they’ve all gone. All the good ones, that is.’
Eveleen looked out of the window towards the workshops. Behind one of the long windows she could see the shadowy shape of her uncle.
‘I’d better go and tell him about Andrew,’ she murmured.
Bridie knelt at the altar rail until her knees hurt, yet she was unaware of the pain. She prayed aloud, talking to God as if he were standing in front of her.
‘Please, don’t let him be dead. Please let him be alive and come home to me. I love him so much. I don’t care if he doesn’t love me in the same way, only please let him
come home. And Uncle Richard too. He’s such a nice, kind man. Please let him be safe.’
Behind her, the door opened and closed again softly. There were tiptoeing footsteps and the squeak of protesting woodwork as someone sat down in one of the pews, but Bridie scarcely noticed.
‘Please, stop the war. All the maiming and killing, it can’t be what you want. I know it can’t. I’ll take care of Andrew, even if he’s injured. Only let him be
alive and I’ll look after him for the rest of my life.’ Her fingers were so tightly laced together in supplication that they were white, the feeling in them almost gone.
Stiffly, she shifted and became aware of the discomfort in her legs. She bowed her head and ended her prayers. ‘God bless all my family. Gran and Josh and Eveleen. And please, God, spare
my great-gran and help me to care for her properly and keep her safe. And God, bless my grandad and help him to know that I’m so sorry I’m a disgrace to his family, but I want to know
him. I so want to love him.’ Then she repeated the words she had heard the minister intone at the end of his prayers, ending with the customary ‘Amen’.
She stood up, bending forward to rub the life back into her limbs before turning to walk down the aisle. She drew breath sharply as she became aware of the motionless figure of Harry Singleton
sitting in a pew at the back. But she did not even glance at him. Holding her head proudly, she walked down the aisle and out of the chapel.
She didn’t notice that he was watching her every step of the way or see the tears rolling silently down his cheeks.
‘Great-Gran! Great-Gran!’ Bridie was racing up the stairs, arriving breathless in Bridget’s room. But her eyes were shining and the grin on her wide mouth
seemed to stretch from ear to ear. ‘You’re not going to believe this. He’s eaten it. I did his favourite, like you told me. Lamb’s liver fry and he’s eaten it. Every
last bit. Look!’
She had even brought the empty dinner plate upstairs to show to the old lady.
Bridget smiled, eyeing the plate and then looking at the girl’s face, flushed with triumph.
‘Well, well. He was either starving hungry or you’ve won.’
Bridie nodded. ‘We’ll see what he does tomorrow.’
But the next day’s plate was cleared too and whilst Harry still never came to his mother’s cottage, still never spoke to Bridie as she passed him in the yard, he now ate the meals
she prepared and left on his table each day.
It was a small, but significant victory.
Bridget improved with each day and, as the weeks passed, she grew stronger and now she was dressing and coming downstairs each day.
‘You can wheel me across to the chapel on Sunday, Bridie.’ She smiled widely at her great-granddaughter. ‘Harry’d like that. It’d be another feather in your cap in
his eyes if you got me to a service.’
Bridie put her arms around the old woman’s shoulders, knowing that she was making the suggestion more to help her than because she hankered to attend chapel. ‘Only if you’re
sure you’re up to it.’
‘I’m up to it, love. I haven’t felt so well for years.’ Her beady eyes, bright in the wizened face, twinkled with merriment. ‘Must be having you around.’
They laughed together and Bridie hugged her. ‘I’m so glad I came here,’ she whispered. ‘So glad I’ve found you.’
‘Not half as glad as I am,’ Bridget said with feeling. ‘I’d have been a goner now if it hadn’t been for you.’
‘Oh no, Great-Gran, I’m sure—’
‘Oh yes, I would,’ Bridget said with asperity. ‘Lil was happy enough to pocket the money Harry paid her to look after me, but she didn’t give a damn. And I was too weak
to do anything about it. I shan’t have her back in here when you go.’
‘Trying to get rid of me, are you?’
‘No, love.’ The old lady looked pensive. ‘But you don’t want to be tied to this place with an old woman and a stubborn old fool of a man. Anyway, I bet Eveleen’s
missing you even though she never says anything. And your gran, if it comes to that.’
Bridie was thoughtful. Mary’s attitude towards her on their visit here had surprised, yet pleased, the young girl. It was the first time her grandmother had shown anything approaching
affection towards her.
‘But while you are still here – ’ Bridget’s voice dragged her back to the present – ‘you can get me to chapel this Sunday.’
There were plenty of willing helpers on the Sunday afternoon when Bridie manoeuvred the cumbersome borrowed bath chair across the road.
‘We’ll not get that through the door.’ Georgie Turner, Gracie’s husband, scratched his head thoughtfully. ‘Tell you what. Leave it outside here and me and one of
the other lads’ll help her inside.’
Bridie stifled her giggles at Georgie Turner calling his cronies ‘lads’. They were all over fifty if they were a day! But she kept her face straight and said, ‘Thank you, Mr
Turner.’
‘Can you walk, Mrs Singleton?’ Georgie now addressed Bridget.
‘’Course I can,’ she began indignantly, but then was obliged to confide, ‘but I do need help.’
The minister whom Bridie had met before took the service. At the end he stood by the door, shaking hands with everyone as they left.
‘Ah, Harry Singleton’s granddaughter, if I’m not mistaken,’ he boomed so that those left could not fail to hear. He shook her hand vigorously and then Bridie saw him
glance beyond her. ‘You come to your senses yet, Harry?’
Harry pushed past them, his face like thunder. ‘I told you before,’ he muttered, ‘you mind your business, Minister. And I’ll mind mine.’
Ignoring the man’s outstretched hand, Harry strode across the road towards Singleton’s Yard. Bridie’s heart felt as if it had dropped inside her and she almost groaned aloud.
Oh no! She’d been making headway, she thought, even if it was only a very small step, and now the minister had unwittingly spoilt it all.
The next day and in the days that followed Harry did not eat the dinners that Bridie took him.
‘Stubborn old fool,’ Bridget muttered, whilst the young girl looked sadly at the wasted food and murmured, ‘I just wish the minister hadn’t said anything.’
September 1915 had brought news of an autumn offensive on the Western Front with combined attacks by the French and the British. The newspapers spoke of victories, but
Richard’s letter, received later in the month, gave a different picture.
We haven’t been involved, but we hear that what could have been a successful attack overrunning a village as the enemy weren’t expecting our lads, failed in
the end because reserves were late arriving and the enemy had sealed off the breach.
He ended, as always, by sending his love to Bridie.
I hope the poor child hasn’t taken the news of Andrew too badly.
Eveleen had folded his letter thoughtfully. The trouble was that Bridie had not accepted the news at all. She stubbornly refused to believe it and Eveleen feared that eventually, when the girl
was obliged to face facts, her grief would be all the more terrible.
Bridie received a letter from Richard.
Today is the first of October and how I wish I was with you back home in dear old Nottingham and visiting the Goose Fair. I can still taste that toffee apple and hear the
fairground music, but I expect the fair has been cancelled this year. Still, after the war, we’ll go again. All of us.
She was acutely aware that he did not add ‘. . . who are left.’
Bridie felt guilty not sharing this letter from Richard with her aunt. Eveleen always brought the letters she had received from him for Bridie to read. But the girl felt her uncle’s
reference to their day spent at the Goose Fair would revive unhappy and guilty feelings for Eveleen. The next letter she was able to show her.
I have had my first experience under shellfire. We had to go out on a digging party. We split up into small sections with twenty-yard intervals between us. Suddenly
everyone else dived into the ditches on either side of the road. I heard an awful shriek and a terrific explosion and I soon made a dive for the ditch too. I was told these are five-point-nines
and that I’ll get to know the sound only too well! Now we’re getting shelled every day on our way back. Perhaps it has something to do with the German ‘sausage’ overhead
– that’s an observation balloon.
‘He’s not told me any of that,’ Eveleen remarked, folding Bridie’s letter and handing it back to her.
‘Perhaps he doesn’t want you to worry too much,’ Bridie soothed, wondering whether she should have shown Eveleen the letter at all. Trying to change the subject, she said,
‘He hasn’t mentioned Andrew. Do you think Uncle Richard thinks he’s still alive somewhere too?’
Now it was Eveleen’s turn to feel guilty that she had not shown her niece the letter in which Richard had intimated that he had accepted the news of Andrew’s loss. Now Eveleen could
think of nothing to say in answer.
In the following months Richard wrote often to Bridie and it seemed that he found it easier to write to her about the conditions at the Front than he did in his letters to
Eveleen.
In November Richard wrote,
I have been in the trenches for the first time. We left our billets in platoons at dusk. It was very dark and strangely quiet. When we left the road we entered a long
trench known as the communication trench. It was in a dreadful condition; knee deep in water and it was still raining! I didn’t sleep much the first night. It takes a bit of getting used
to when rats as big as cats snuggle under your armpits in the night to keep warm! We stayed there for eight days – four days in support and four days in the front line. The daytime was
spent in trench repairing and the night in sentry duty – two hours on and four off. We all stand at battle positions one hour before dark and again an hour before dawn. After that we
stand down and get our fires going to boil water and fry bacon, being careful not to make much smoke or this brings the shells! We were lucky on our sector – it was very quiet, though we
had to be careful to keep below the parapet because of snipers. Now we have been relieved and have gone back to digging.
Eveleen and Bridie still continued to show each other the letters they received, but those to Eveleen gave news only of the times that he was away from the front line. His letter in December was
cheerful.
We’ve been relieved by the 7th SF. We had a six-hour march and were all very tired, but at least we’ve seen the last of the trenches and the mud – for a
while anyway! We seem to be moving about a lot just now. At one time we were billeted in a small chaˆteau on the banks of the Lys.
To Bridie he wrote,
Feeling rather war torn and my feet are not too good. I’ve had a touch of flu and felt very wonky whilst on guard duty.
No letter came for over a month and both Eveleen and Bridie began to feel anxious. His next letter to Eveleen explained the long silence.
Haven’t been able to write for a while. At the beginning of January A and C Companies (I’m in A) left for M . . . in the south.
The rest of the name had been heavily scored out, but from what followed, Eveleen guessed the place was Marseilles.
It took us three days by train to get there and where we were camped had a splendid view of the Château d’If. Don’t know why we were taken all that way
– maybe the officers know, but they’re certainly not telling us. However, a few of us were lucky enough to get passes into the city and docks. Had tea at a restaurant and then went
to the pictures. Visited Notre Dame de la Garde – superb view of the gulf and the islands and indeed the whole city. I had to be vaccinated so my arm’s a bit painful, but it
hasn’t stopped me visiting the zoological gardens and the Palais de Longchamps. Then, suddenly, we were on the move again. We marched eight miles back to the station, where we were given
a splendid send-off by the locals. Another three days on the train, but travelling through the valley of the Rhône was wonderful . . .
A letter to Bridie admitted,
The thirteen days in the south were great, but it makes coming back to the trenches all the harder. And now it’s snowing . . .
‘He must know we swap letters,’ Bridie remarked, trying to make light of the marked difference between them. ‘He’s just telling us different news, that’s
all.’
Again, Eveleen said nothing.
At the beginning of 1916 the House of Commons voted overwhelmingly for military conscription and in February well-off families were urged to dispense with their servants. But
Emily – the only one in Eveleen’s household who was still young enough to do useful war work – left of her own accord.
‘I’m going into munitions, ma’am,’ she said as she handed Eveleen her written notice.
‘After it’s all over, Emily, come back and see me, won’t you?’
‘Oh yes, ma’am,’ the girl smiled, but Eveleen had the distinct feeling that once her maid had tasted life outside domestic service, the girl was unlikely to want to return.
No letters came from Richard throughout February.
‘You haven’t had a letter, Bridie,’ Eveleen asked anxiously, ‘and not shown it to me?’
‘No. Have you?’
Eveleen bit her lip and shook her head. Then she decided to confess. ‘There’s been only one letter I haven’t shown you. After – after Andrew was posted
missing.’