Pam Pheasant

 

1923

“What do you think, Maudie?  Who would have thought that a year ago this was just a rough old field?”  Edward Lincoln’s chest swelled with pride.

“It’s wonderful,” said his wife obediently, wondering how long she would be expected to stand hugging herself in the cold wind, while the photographer fiddled about setting up, adjusting and readjusting his equipment.  The children had disappeared.  She hoped they were not getting into trouble.  She had asked Prudence to look after little Doris.  At thirteen Prudence should be sensible enough to keep an eye on the others, but Doris was only three and delicate.  The site was full of rubbish.  It would be easy for one of them to fall and hurt themselves.  Why did builders need to make such a mess?  She would insist that Edward had the site cleared and made safe before they moved in. 

Edward paced up and down in front of his property, walking carefully over the rough ground.  He was forty-three and this was the first house his family had ever owned.  Times had been hard after the Great War, but he had been luckier than most.  With so many skilled men lost somewhere in France, he had been in great demand as a cabinet-maker with his own business.  The thing was that he wanted to expand and the family needed more space.  It was difficult to find suitable lodgings to meet Maudie’s social aspirations, with room for a workshop.  He’d taken a chance buying this three-acre site on the edge of the suburbs.  Building his own house seemed a very daring step.  Maudie had been dead set against it.

The photographer cleared his throat.  At last he was ready.  “Where have those children gone now?” demanded Edward angrily. 

Maud straightened her back.  “They have gone for a walk.  It’s cold in this wind.”  She managed to convey her own irritation without words.  She would have liked to remind him that those children were not solely her responsibility, but as usual she curbed her tongue.

Sensing her frustration, Edward said more mildly.  “They can’t be far away.  I’ll walk round the side of the house and see if I can spot them.  Perhaps he could take one of you on your own, my dear.  You can stand in front of the porch.”

“Indeed I cannot.  I’m not walking across that rough ground.  I’d be likely to turn my ankle on the rubble.  You must get it removed before we move in next week.”  She sighed.  She was dreading it.  All that upheaval did not bear thinking about.

The children were grimy, their pinafores not so white and immaculate as they had been when they arrived.  Evelyn had a smudge on her nose and Phyllis had what looked like a tear in her frock that she was trying hard to hide.  They looked cross.   Surely, they hadn’t been fighting again. It was so unbecoming in young girls.  With boys it had to be expected, but girls should be ladylike.  She was thankful that all four of her children were girls, although she knew that Edward hankered after a son to follow him in the business.  There was still time – she was only thirty-nine – but she did hope not.   She set about tidying the children for the photograph, scrubbing Evelyn’s nose so firmly with her white lace-edged handkerchief that she had a red mark instead of a black one. 

“Ouch.  That hurts Ma.” 

“It serves you right.  Now stand up straight all of you.  You too Doris and stop scrunching up the front of your pinafore.  It looks like a dishrag.  Really, I don’t know how I came by such untidy children.”  She straightened Prudence’s wire framed glasses that were always crooked.  “You’d better stand behind the others Phyllis.”  She gave her daughter a meaningful look that told her that the rent in her skirt had not gone unnoticed. 

“Can we go inside?” asked Doris after what seemed like an hour of standing still.  Exasperated her mother noticed the front of her pinafore still screwed up in one hand, the other reaching up for Papa. 

“I think we must leave it for another day, when the builders have had time to clear up the mess.  You wouldn’t want to get your shoes all mucky would you?”  Doris ignored her mother and continued to gaze hopefully at her father, her small fingers tugging at the leg of his trousers.

“We could have a quick look round.  I wanted to show you the new lavatory my dear, now everything’s been installed.  No more going out the back for us.  I’ll carry Dorrie, so she won’t get all mucky.”  His tone was coaxing.

“Take the children if you must, but I’ll wait here.  Please don’t be too long.”  Her disapproval was almost tangible.  Not only had he used the word “lavatory” in front of the photographer, who was taking his time packing away his equipment, but he had deliberately undermined her authority.  He might not mind if his children returned home looking like ragamuffins; she did.

Edward was disappointed.  “As you wish, Maudie.  If you are cold, you could sit in the car.”

“I shall be perfectly all right.”   Maud held herself upright, her expression one of martyrdom.  She did wish he wouldn’t call her Maudie.  She always called him Edward, never called him Ted as his sister, Nellie, did – so common. 

The children and their father picked their way carefully over the uneven ground to the front door, where he set his smallest child down on the step while he felt in his pocket for the key.  None of them looked back, all too aware of disapproving eyes boring into the backs of their heads.

Once inside the house, the children forgot their mother instantly in amazement.  Without any furniture, the rooms seemed huge, big enough to play games in.  The low autumn sunshine shone through a stained glass window halfway up the stairs reflecting its vivid colours on the dark tiled floor of the big square hall.  “This is the lounge.”  Their father opened one of the double doors on the left, which also had stained glass panels.  Doris stood on tiptoe to look through each coloured square, viewing the room in monochrome pink, blue and yellow.  The others ran from room to room, their leather-soled boots thudding on the bare floorboards.

Upstairs, the children were enthralled with the three large bedrooms and one smaller room above the porch.  They were not as impressed with the bathroom and separate water closet as their father had hoped.  Where would Ada sleep they wanted to know.   Would she have the small room? 

“No, said their father.  “There is a delightful little attic room for Ada.  See the stairs leading to it are in a cupboard.  It will be like her own front door.”  He kept his fingers crossed.  If Ada refused to come, he didn’t know what they would do.  Maudie would never consent to come without her.  The children were the key.  Ada was devoted to them, particularly little Dorrie.   

The children charged up the narrow stairs and found two rooms of equal size.  “Will Ada have two rooms,” asked Dorrie innocently  “She always says there isn’t room to swing a cat where we live now.”  She had always wondered why one would want to swing a cat.  The only swings she knew were the ones in the park and she could not imagine Tibby, who had a mind of his own, consenting to sit on one of those.

“One of them is for Ada, the other room is to store things, our trunks for when we go on holiday, that sort of thing.  We’ll let Ada choose which one she likes best shall we?  Don’t forget to tell her how big they are.”   Doris nodded.  She was well aware that Ada had threatened not to come with them to the new house, but she already knew that she had powers of persuasion that the older children no longer possessed – a few tears and she was sure to get her way.

“This will be your mother’s bedroom.  Do you think she will like it?”  Edward led the children into the big back bedroom.  They looked around dutifully and then ran to the window to peer out.

“How much of it belongs to us?” asked Prudence. 

“Right up to the line of the trees.”  Their father came to stand behind them.  “Then all the land between the house and the railway line.  The other side where those posts are will be fenced to separate our land from the farm.  We will be able to buy fresh milk from the farm.  Perhaps the farmer will let you go and watch the cows being milked.”  He noticed that Doris was looking puzzled.  For her, milk came in a big metal churn with measuring jugs banging on the side that was brought to the door on a horse drawn cart.

“Have they got horses on the farm?” asked Prudence hastily. 

“Yes, I believe they have.  Two great big Shire horses.   One’s grey like Dapple your little wooden horse.”  He cast his older daughter a grateful look.  Fortunately, Doris was easily distracted.  Edward had been brought up in the country and found it difficult to understand his wife’s embarrassed avoidance of making reference to any bodily function.  He would be in trouble if Doris went home enlightened on the primary attributes of mammals.  Ada had been banned from instructing the children on any such matters.  Maud would tell them what they needed to know, when the time was right.  Somehow it seemed that the time might never be right.  

Phyllis and Evelyn had wandered back onto the landing and were discussing the allocation of bedrooms.  Their voices were raised already in what sounded like the beginning of an argument.  He wished he had designed the house with five bedrooms, but the project had been planned before Doris was born.  Two of the girls would have to share and Phyllis and Evelyn sharing would be a disaster.  On the other hand, if anyone deserved a room to herself it was Prudence.  She needed some privacy.  He looked with affection at his eldest daughter, a plain child with her steel rimmed spectacles, but clever, he believed.  She had not been fobbed off with the fairy stories that the others seemed to accept without question, like the doctor brings the baby in his bag.  By hook or by crook Prudence had to know.   Most of her information came from Ada or one of Ada’s many sisters.  At least, she knew better than to share her knowledge with the others.  Just recently she’d started to come to him occasionally for verification of some of Ada’s wilder flights of fancy and he welcomed this.  At least this child would not go into marriage as ignorant as Maudie, who had never fully recovered from the shock.

Listening to Doris’s meaningless chatter, he was reminded of Maudie when he first met her, vivacious, teasing, almost coquettish, fluttering her eyelashes and leading him on.  He had been flattered by the interest of a stylish woman far above him in the social order.  Of course, there was no money, otherwise he would have stood no chance.  Her family lived in far more impoverished conditions than his, but they maintained their standards and status.  His own limited experience with women did not prepare him to overcome Maud’s disgust.   Her mother had taken her aside the day before their wedding and warned her what to expect.  “If that is so, I shall never smile again,” she declared in disbelief, and kept her word.  She did her duty, no more, no less, but the eager spontaneous girl, looking forward to the importance of becoming a married woman, disappeared overnight. 

Edward and the children paused in the big square hall, brushing the dust off their clothes and bracing themselves for a cool reception back at the car. 

“Are we really moving next week?” asked Evelyn.  “Mother says we must start packing when we get home.  Are we taking everything?”  She looked doubtful, visualising the lovely spacious rooms crowded and cluttered like their present lodging.

“Almost everything.”  Edward could not imagine how they would get Maudie’s huge Victorian sideboard through the doorway, let alone the ornate Jacobean style chairs and massive dark oak dining table, but they would meet that problem when it arose.  He had shown Maudie the designs for the modern oak furniture that he was constructing in spare moments in his workshop.  She had not been much interested.  He planned to have it all in place before the move, together with the new Axminster carpets that he had chosen.  There really would not be room for all the heavy Victorian stuff, but he had been putting off the inevitable conflict.  In the end she would acquiesce.  She would not be happy, but he had long ago given up trying to bring her happiness.  You had to know when you were defeated.

Maud was still standing where they had left her.  Edward felt a surge of irritation.  Why could she not have sat in the car?  It was a deliberate ploy to make them feel guilty and of course they did. 

“You should have come with us, my dear.  We could have discussed the best way to manage the girls’ sleeping arrangements.” 

“I’ve already made my decision on that subject.”  Maud paused by the car door, waiting for her husband to step forward and open it.  Her tone was non-confrontational, but final.  No one dared ask what she had decided.

Edward put all his effort into cranking the handle that might or might not be effective in achieving ignition.  If he had married Edith from the farm, she would be out of the car giving him a hand.  Maudie sat upright in the passenger seat, gazing straight ahead, her expression one of endurance.  It was no good harking back.  He had left Edith behind as he became more successful in his business.  Remembering her generous figure and welcoming arms led nowhere.  His sister, Nellie, maintained contact with Edith.  The child was a few months older than Prudence.  It was ironic that Maudie had insisted on the name of Prudence for their first child, almost as if she guessed, although surely she could not have done.  He had not been prudent then, but since then, what with the war and everything, there had been no opportunity to be anything else. 

A final turn brought a hesitant cough from the engine.  With renewed hope, he gave another crank to be rewarded by the welcome clatter as the engine came to life.  Relieved, because dear Maudie would never let him forget it if the car let him down outside their new home, Edward inserted himself into the driver’s seat and after a stern word to Evelyn and Phyllis who were arguing again, headed the car towards the town.  It had been a relatively calm and happy day.  There was nothing at all to prepare them for the shock when they arrived home.