Mourning Doves (23 page)

Louise walked slowly down King’s Gap towards the sea. Though the tide was ebbing, there was still enough water on which the spring sunshine could dance, and a light breeze caught playfully at her widow’s veil; the wind did not roar at her as it had done round the cottage.

She felt lonely and depressed. She had intended to call on Lady Tremaine, the widow of one of her husband’s business friends, who lived in Meols Drive, Hoylake. She was one of the few women she was acquainted with on this side of the Mersey. When she went to the house, however, the lady was not at home, and she had had to content herself with leaving her card with the parlourmaid.

She could not immediately recall the address of anyone else in Hoylake with whom she could claim acquaintance, and she wished that she had, after all, accompanied Celia to her appointment with Mr Philpotts. She could not, she thought savagely, even go into a village shop to amuse herself by trying on hats. For a lady wearing a mourning bonnet to indulge in such frivolity would not be considered good conduct.

She turned along the promenade, and paused, one hand on the iron railing at the edge of the pavement, to look down at two children, as they sought sea shells on the shore. They reminded her of Tom and George when they were boys, and, also, that they had left no grandchildren to console her. What did widows do? she wondered. Nobody
seemed to need them nowadays, perhaps because there were so many.

Except that she was temporarily drained by the stress of Timothy’s untimely death and the consequential money shortage, she was a woman of excellent health and she had always kept herself busy, apart from running her home most efficiently, by planning elaborate dinners or soirées for Timothy’s friends; she was well known as a hostess, and such efforts were very helpful to Timothy in keeping in touch with other businessmen; there was a point in arranging them. But such entertaining would not be possible on the small income she would have in future, even if it were a suitable occupation for a widowed lady. Aimless afternoon teas for other widows would be about the limit she could afford.

As she began to recover from the shock of bereavement, her sense of frustration was making her increasingly restless, and, in consequence, she continued her wanderings along the promenade until she was quite tired. Then she turned round to walk back the way she had come.

I can’t live like I have been doing these past few weeks, she considered fretfully, as she watched the sea birds hunting over the wet sands.

Still deep in thought, she reached a bench on which, at the very end, sat a man. He held a walking stick clasped upright between his knees. He had rested his chin on his hands and looked as if he were searching the horizon for something. He wore a peaked tweed cap and a belted macintosh.

He looked respectable enough, so Louise sat quietly down on the far end of the bench to rest her feet. She nodded absently to the man as she passed him and said politely, ‘Good morning.’

He ignored her.

She did not accept the rebuff kindly. As she arranged her skirts around her, she thought crossly that this was not
Liverpool where you would not talk to strangers. Hoylake was still small enough to be considered a village. Almost everyone would know everyone else, and she herself wanted to become casually acquainted with the local inhabitants. Once she knew the social standing of people, she would, as a result of moving so far away from her old home, have to make new, suitable friends from amongst them.

Really, some people were awfully rude.

While she rested her feet, her mind fretted on. She had received that morning a troublesome letter from Cousin Albert saying that he had had an offer for her house and that the price was being negotiated by the estate agent. He expected to be in Meols in the course of the next week or two.

‘And where does he think he is going to sleep in a three-bedroomed cottage?’ she asked herself crossly. Celia would simply have to give up her room and share Edna’s bed. A male guest would be under one’s feet the whole time. And such a lot of work.

There was also the dreadful finality of the sale. How was she going to face the fact that strangers would now have the right to live in her home? It was certain that Albert would not understand her grief over it. In fact it seemed to her that nobody, including Edna, herself a widow, understood what she was going through without dear Timothy to lean on and his needs to think about.

Her reverie was interrupted by a hoarse voice from the other end of the bench. It asked, ‘Is someone there?’ The accent was a Lancashire one.

The oddness of the question made Louise jump. She replied tartly, ‘Yes. There is.’

It was as if the man had not heard her, because he went straight on speaking to her, and what he said shook her out of her irritation at Cousin Albert, out of her personal misery.

She turned to stare at him, her mouth open in disbelieving shock.

In a voice which seemed weakened by illness, he said, ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you, but I get very bored sitting here. I’m deaf and blind. I can talk to you, but you can’t talk to me – unless you would be kind enough to sit close to me and touch my hand once for yes and twice for no. Then, at least, you can say yes or no to me.’

She was alarmed by the unexpectedness of the request. She had been taught in childhood that nice women didn’t touch strange men, unless they were first introduced – when a lady could politely allow her hand to be shaken.

For a second or two, she stared at the bent figure at the other end of the bench. Under the long, belted macintosh, she noticed that his trousers were hospital blue.

An ex-serviceman. Dear God! What dreadful thing had happened to him?

She knew from the newspapers about the number of blinded soldiers, who had, somehow, to be taught to read Braille and manage for themselves; she understood that the existing facilities were overwhelmed by their dire need. But that a man could be blinded and deafened had never occurred to her.

She was revolted at the idea. It was a revulsion equivalent to finding one of Tommy Atkins’ half-dead mice in the drawing room, when her first instinct had been to call someone else to remove it – and dispose of it out of her sight.

But she was not without feeling. This was a young man, like Tom or George. A real man – not a mouse to be shovelled into the rubbish bin. Poor soul!

She swallowed nervously. Supposing George or Tom had returned to her smitten like that? What would she have done? How could she have coped with someone that helpless? How would she communicate with them? How could she convey to this man that she was grateful to him for
going out to fight – sacrificing himself for king and country, as army generals were fond of saying.

The man had fallen silent, as she stared at him. She was suddenly filled with an immense pity, and what few motherly instincts she had ever had came to the fore. He didn’t look more than thirty. Now that the war was over, how would he earn a living? Would he get a decent pension? Would his wife nurse him?

She forgot about Cousin Albert and all her other worries. Plucking up courage, she rose from her end of the bench, and bashfully reseated herself close to him. He felt the swish of her skirts against his leg, and asked, ‘Are you a lady?’

She lifted his left hand from the walking stick, and he allowed her to turn it and open the palm. Very gently she touched his palm once. She saw him smile.

‘Do you live here?’

Again she signalled yes. She allowed him to rest his hand, palm upwards, on her lap, while he told her how he had, in France, been blinded, deafened and wounded in the back. ‘I’m with a lot of other lads in one of the houses facing the sea – I know by the smell of the wind that it faces the sea. All the lads are blind, but I believe only two of us are blind and deaf – and I don’t think the army doctors know what to do with us.’ His laugh was very cynical. ‘If I had a family, I suspect they would just send me home and make the family work it out. But I have no close kin – which is why I joined the army in the first place.’

Louise was so shaken at the idea of such a decent-looking man, no gentleman but nevertheless very respectable-looking, being abandoned that she found herself trying to hold back tears, and one dropped on to his hand.

He felt it, and shifted round to face her. Very carefully, with two fingers he followed the line of her arm from his hand, up to the fur collar of her coat and then almost poked her chin as he found her face.

‘Don’t cry,’ he said, as he felt the dampness on her cheek. ‘It doesn’t help.’ He sighed, and then asked, ‘Can I feel your face, so that I will know what you look like?’ He felt her nod agreement.

As the fingers went gently over her skin, Louise was shocked to find herself sexually stirred. It was impossible with a strange man – indecent. But it was there, roused by a man young enough to be her son. Did he feel the same? She was a little frightened.

She held herself rigid, while the exploring fingers ventured over her curled fringe and then her bonnet and the veil thrown back over it.

If he felt anything, he gave no indication of it. He checked the veil again, and again he sighed.

‘Forgive my asking, but are you a widow?’

She tapped yes.

‘The war?’

She tapped no.

‘Natural?’

He felt her sigh in her turn, and he did not probe further. A natural death made sense. The feel of the loose skin under her eyes told him that she was not young. And most war widows would be young and less likely to wear a veil.

He had held his stick between his knees, and after he had steadied it, he dropped his hands in his lap and tried another tack.

‘I’m Sergeant Richard Williamson, 5th South Lancashire Regiment, and I was born in St Helens. I’ve been all over the world with the regular army. It’s a miracle that I’m still alive, I suppose. What’s your name?’ He smiled suddenly, ‘You could try spelling it out on the palm of my hand, if you like.’

Poor boy, she thought. Still so young, despite his rank – and trying so hard to communicate.

Totally absorbed by his terrible predicament, she ignored her own feelings, and again picked up his left hand. Very
carefully she traced L, which he got immediately, and, after a couple of tries, he managed O and U. The rest of her name defeated him.

She saw the frustration on his face, and she squeezed his hand in the hope of conveying her understanding. Without thinking, she said to him, ‘It doesn’t matter. Louise is not a very common name.’ Then she remembered that he could not hear.

He turned his hand round and clasped hers. ‘Mrs Lou!’

She lifted his hand to her mouth, so that he could feel her laugh, and it made him chuckle, like a finger game would amuse a small child.

Their laughter ceased abruptly, as they were interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind them. Richard felt Louise freeze and then turn to see who was approaching.

He sat absolutely still, wary as a disturbed rabbit.

‘Oh, Ma’am, I hope Mr Williamson is not being a nuisance to you?’ A young woman in a nurse’s cap and apron stood behind the bench. ‘Sometimes they can be a pest – and that stupid.’

Louise rose. She noticed that the woman did not wear a nurse’s pin. A servant dressed as a nurse did not impress her. She said frigidly, ‘Certainly not. I am horrified by his predicament – and I was happy to try to communicate with him.’

The girl shrugged. ‘Oh, aye. It’s proper sad. Bad enough when they’re blind. There’s two of ’em here as is blind and deaf. Proper difficult it is looking after them.’ She turned to Richard and tapped him on the shoulder.

He rose immediately, and held out his hand to where he thought Louise might be. She turned back to him and shook his hand. ‘Goodbye, Mrs Lou,’ he said, his voice formal.

Louise did not know what made her continue to hold his hand, but she did, while she asked the young woman, ‘Where is he staying?’

The answer sounded a little impatient, ‘In Mon Repos.
That’s the house across the road. It’s a nursing home now. Holds thirty men.’ She put her hand firmly under Richard’s arm and began to turn him away from Louise.

‘Wait a minute,’ Louise interrupted. ‘May I come with you to the house? I should like to arrange to see Sergeant Williamson again. He tells me he has no relations – on whom he could call for help or advice. He might be glad to know a local family.’

Louise could appear very formidable when she chose. The girl hesitated. She looked carefully at her. Sealskin collar to her well-cut black coat, real kid gloves clasped in one hand, a hand with a huge diamond ring. A widow’s bonnet and veil. A rich widow?

She smirked almost insolently, and Louise could have hit her. Then the girl shrugged. ‘Very well, Ma’am. But I tell you, he’s got a mind of his own, he has.’ There was more than a hint of resentment at a man who would not do what he was told, because he could not hear, and therefore, instead, did what seemed to him to be best in the circumstances. She added reluctantly, ‘You could talk to Matron if you want. He’s got to come in now – it’s lunch time.’

Still holding Richard’s hand firmly, so that he would know that she was going with him, Louise repositioned herself, in order that the girl could guide him. Slowly, the three of them crossed the road, and Louise had to relinquish Richard’s hand, so that he could use his stick to feel his way up a flight of steps to a lawn, where a number of abandoned lawn chairs suggested the existence of other residents in the fine, big house before them.