Bia's War (13 page)

“I put out my hand and patted
her on her arm.”

“There’s no need for you to lose
your wedding ring, Mrs I’Anson.” I replied immediately. “You can
have your weekly shopping for as long as it takes Mr I’Anson to get
back to work and then you can pay me back as and when you are able.
I would do anything to make sure that my Simon is fed and provided
for, so I fully understand how you must be feeling.”

“The relief on her face was
indescribable. It was though someone had lit a lamp behind her eyes
and her joy shone out over me. She insisted on leaving her wedding
ring with me, even though I told her I didn’t need collateral for
her loan and, to cut a long story short, when her husband got back
to work, the first thing she did was to repay the money and receive
her wedding ring back. I didn’t charge her the full amount for her
groceries because I knew life would be difficult for them even
after Mr I’Anson was working again, especially when I discovered
that their landlord had insisted on having all of his back rent
paid in full. The next time one of mine and Sammy’s houses came
available, I offered it to the I’Ansons at a rent lower than what
they had been paying for number 46 and they moved happily into
it.”

“That poor woman!” Victoria
exclaimed. “How could her landlord expect her to be able to pay
their rent when her husband had been injured? You were very good to
her, letting her have the food cheaper and then finding them
somewhere to live.”

Nana Lymer shook her head.

“I wasn’t being a saint,
Victoria,” she answered. “I admired that couple because they put
their children before themselves, the same as I did, and I had no
intention of making a profit out of their misfortune. I wouldn’t
have been able to live with my conscience if I had done that. But I
haven’t told you about the I’Ansons to make me look good, I’ve told
you because it had a bearing on what happened to me next.”

“I don’t think that Mr or Mrs
I’Anson told anyone else how they had been helped, but word seemed
to get round that I would take certain goods in payment for food
when times were hard and it wasn’t long after this that I found
myself running a small pawn-broking business alongside the shop. I
was very careful about what goods I would accept and from whom,
because I had no intentions of being caught for fencing stolen
items, but I regularly accepted wedding rings and other small items
of jewellery, as well as things like silver tea sets or boxes and
supplied food to the value of my estimation of their worth. I say
my estimation of their worth because I had no specialist knowledge
of gold and silver, but I made my estimations on the price of
similar items in the jewellery shops’ windows, always subtracting a
percentage which I felt was added as the profit on each item.”

“I later learned that I had
underestimated the value of many items, but never because I wanted
to squeeze extra money out of those experiencing hard times, it was
always a genuine mistake on my part.”

“Did people come back and
collect their possessions when they had the money to pay for them?”
Victoria wanted to know, finding it difficult to imagine what
pawning an item of value would be like.

“Some people got their
possessions back, others never did find the money and I soon
amassed a very strange assortment of items which I stored in the
strong box I kept in my bedroom. I intended that one day, when I
wasn’t quite so busy, I would sort them out and sell what I
considered to be valuable items and use the money for Simon to go
to a good school when he was older. In the meantime, the strong box
had items added to it quite regularly and it became yet another
string to my bow.”

“Did anyone try to cheat you
with these items, Nana?” Victoria asked. “You know, did anyone
pretend something was gold when it wasn’t?”

“Sometimes, pet.” Nana Lymer
smiled at her question. “For some reason that I’ve never
understood, I was always pretty good at being able to tell what was
real gold and what wasn’t. Added to which, I didn’t accept any
items from those whom I considered to be villains or ruffians
although, as I accepted items in place of payment for food, the
ruffians tended to stick to the real pawnbrokers where they got
cash for their goods. Usually, my customers were those who were
genuinely in need, not tricksters out to make a killing. Anyway,
that became my third business venture, albeit a venture I sort of
fell into rather than one I had planned.”

“Things were getting worse as
far as the War was concerned and the big operations in France and
Flanders were killing so many of our boys that there were few
places left in the British Isles where there wasn’t a roll call of
the dead. To make things worse, the Hun were being particularly
successful in sinking merchant shipping, which was affecting the
supply of food. I had contracts with a few local farmers but I was
afraid that there would come a time when there would be shortages
and I had to have a contingency plan for maintaining my supplies. I
decided that it would be a good idea to buy in as much
non-perishable food as I was able to get hold of, but with that
idea came the problem of storage.”

“Our new place in Queen Street
had more storage space than in my old house, but I needed more and
that was when one of the warehouses at the dockside became
available for rent. I thought it would be a good place to store
food for various reasons; it was out of sight of most people in the
town so I could fill it without anyone being aware of what I was
doing; there was always a gatekeeper and the dock workers about so
it was unlikely that any thieves would consider it easy game and,
best of all, it was the ideal place for receiving goods which had
arrived by ship or by train, the station being next to the
docks.”

“Sam knew what I was doing, of
course, because I had discussed it with him before I paid the first
rent on the building and he tramped the whole area finding other
sources of supply so that we soon had a goodly amount of stock
stacked in the warehouse. I got very friendly with the dockworkers
and the gatekeepers because I always took pies, pasties and ginger
beer for them whenever I went down there and they repaid me by
letting me know whenever a shipment had got through the blockades,
carrying goods they thought might be of interest to me.”

“I always took Peter with me
whenever I went to the docks because he was good protection for me
and he loved to jaunt around the town. He had filled out over the
last couple of years because he and Annie were eating a lot better
since they had started to work for me and his shoulders had
broadened with the extra exercise he was getting. He was as big as
a barn door, but his brain hadn’t kept up with his body’s growth
and, inside, he was still only a little boy. There were times when
Simon could more easily understand what was being explained to him
than Peter could, but he had made it his purpose in life to look
after me and one growl from him could dissuade any sailor who
thought he could try it on when we passed on the dock road.”

“Another benefit I got from
renting the warehouse was an idea which was planted in my mind by
the man who rented the warehouse next to mine, Mr Sanderson. He was
a grain importer who was very worried by the amount of ships being
lost to the enemy, some of which had contained his grain as part of
their cargo and it was now rotting on the seabed. One day, as I was
commiserating with him over another such loss, he informed me that
he was salting wealth away in case his business collapsed as a
result of enemy action. I asked him if he was keeping the money in
the bank, because it wasn’t safe to have cash on his premises, but
he wasn’t keeping cash. He told me an old sea captain had advised
him years before to always put his money in gems not in gold or
stocks and shares. The price of both gold and stocks could (and
did) vary enormously, but jewels never lost their value. An added
bonus was that they were small and could be easily concealed either
in a house or about the person.”

“I mulled over that conversation
in my mind for the rest of the day and that night, after Simon had
had his bath and bedtime story, I took out the stash of jewellery
which I had hidden in my bedroom. There wasn’t a huge quantity, but
I had a few gold rings, a couple of gold brooches and some
bracelets. Quite a few of them had gemstones in their settings and
although I could recognise pearls, sapphires and rubies, there were
a few which I couldn’t identify. Don’t run away with the idea that
I had amassed a small fortune, because I hadn’t, but I needed to
know the true worth of the whole collection. I had given foodstuffs
to the value I placed on them, but I had no idea of what I would
get for them if I sold them.”

“I resolved that the next day I
would go to one of the big jewellers in the centre of town and ask
them for a valuation. If they turned out to be worth a decent
amount, I would work out some method of carrying them hidden about
my person. Perhaps I could make a padded pocket which would hang
inside my skirt and not reveal itself to the outside world.”

“The next day, I visited the two
largest jewellers in the town and asked them both for a valuation
of my little pieces and they both arrived at a sum that simply
stunned me. It appeared that I had an eye for gems, to add to my
ability to tell real gold from fake and my little stash was worth a
considerable amount. Word soon got round town that not only would I
accept brooches and chains in payment for food, but that on
occasions I would give cash for a jewel that I particularly liked.
And I liked them a lot if they were worth money. I was very careful
not to give too much money out for a piece of jewellery, but I was
always determined to give what I considered a fair price,
particularly if the recipient was a decent, hard-working member of
the community. I never had the intention of making a huge profit
out of the misery that the War had engendered which was why I kept
my council over what I owned and I didn’t live in an ostentatious
manner. I have never in my life wasted money or bought items I
didn’t need. I left that sort of behaviour to those who made money
on the black market out of people’s misery.”

“Times were changing rapidly
through those first couple of years of the War. So many men had
been killed or injured, so many households lost their breadwinners
and women were now doing many horrendous jobs to help out with the
war effort and to keep their families fed and housed. I was so
grateful that I had had the foresight to start my shop when I did
and, although I worked very hard and for long hours, I was ably
supported by Annie and Peter and, of course, Sam and Hannah.
Because of my contacts in the dockyard and my contracts with many
local farmers, I always had stock to sell and we suffered a lot
less than many other businesses. Sam continued to find houses for
us to buy to rent out and, during the whole of the War, we only
evicted two families for non-payment of rent. Both of these
families had husbands working in the iron works and earning good
money and should have been able to manage their budgets well, but
both sets of parents had taken to drink and thievery to support
their needs for alcohol. It distressed me very greatly to have them
evicted and I found it very hard to live with what I considered to
be the guilt of throwing families onto the streets, but we had let
them remain for a lot longer than any other landlords would have
done. I had to remind myself that all that I did was for Simon and
I had to put him before anything else.”

“You couldn’t let them live rent
free, Nana,” Victoria said. “It wasn’t your fault that they were
weak people and you couldn’t carry everyone’s burdens on your
back.”

“I know, chick, but the guilt
ate at me for a long time. I couldn’t help it.”

“Did you collect a lot of
jewellery Nana? Did you sell it all or did you wear some of it?”
Victoria was fascinated by the idea of owning gold and precious
jewels and secretly wondered if there were any gems hidden in Nana
Lymer’s possessions in that very room. Nana laughed at the
questions.

“Wear some of it?” she said.
“No, I was up to my ears in flour, potatoes and cooked meats all
day, every day! I didn’t have the time or the inclination for
dressing like a countess. Anyway, those gems were for Simon’s
schooling so that he would get a good job when he was older and
never have to worry where his next meal was coming from. They were
a means to an end for me, not for decoration. Now, where was I with
the story? Oh yes, I had rented the warehouse down near the
docks.”

Nana thought for a moment,
trying to get the events of the early decades of the twentieth
century organised in her mind before she continued her tale.

“In July of 1916, Mr Sanderson,
the grain merchant, lost his son on the Somme and lost his appetite
for life in business at the same time. His wife had died before the
War began and his son’s death meant there was only him and his
daughter left of their little family. He couldn’t face the daily
grind and worry that his grain business consisted of, so he sold up
and went to live in one of the small villages on the other side of
Eston Hills. I can’t remember which village, but that doesn’t
matter. He bought a smallholding and intended raising chickens
there and pretending that the horrors of war weren’t happening. I
felt sorry for his daughter, who I felt deserved a bit more out of
life, but I couldn’t imagine how terrible it must be to lose a
child, so I wished him well in his new venture and carried on
working.”

“Three days after Mr Sanderson
had left, Peter and I were down at the dockside, supervising the
unloading of some stock from a ship which had just berthed when I
saw someone open the door of Mr Sanderson’s warehouse. I glanced
across to see who was my new ‘neighbour’ and realised that it was
the pig butcher who was locking the door. I tried to get into my
warehouse before he saw me, but he turned his head as I moved and I
couldn’t pretend that I hadn’t seen him. I stood still, unsure of
what to do next, but he took that decision out of my hands and
started walking towards me. I wondered whether I should lock myself
into the warehouse until he had gone, but I had to admit that I
hadn’t heard any scurrilous gossip about him since he had been
man-handled out of my backyard, so I dithered on my warehouse
doorstep, watching him as he strode across the roadway between the
buildings.”