Women on the Home Front Read online

  ‘That’s right, I have,’ Dulcie agreed.

  Lydia Whittingham flashed her a venomous look of female dislike, insisting, ‘I doubt that. It was plain to me what she was up to. Another few minutes and she’d have been walking out of the department with that case. Not that she would have got very far. It’s perfectly obvious to anyone with eyes in their head that she simply isn’t the sort who could ever afford such an exclusive and expensive item. I’m going to call the manager, David. He can deal with her, and you can buy me that lizardskin handbag you promised me for my birthday.’

  Never one to back down from a challenge Dulcie drew herself up to her full height and tossed her head, her confidence boosted by the appreciative look she could see David giving her behind Lydia Whittingham’s back.

  ‘You can call the manager if you like, and if you don’t mind making a fool of yourself when I tell him that I got sent up here officially to look in this here case to see how much makeup could be packed into it.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ Lydia proclaimed immediately.

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘So who sent you up here then – and be aware that I shall check.’

  ‘Mr Selfridge,’ Dulcie told her with aplomb and without the slightest concern for the fact that she was lying. ‘And you can go and ask him yourself if you want. He said that the case was a gift for a young lady of his acquaintance.’

  To one side of her, Dulcie could hear David James-Thompson’s muffled laugh.

  Lydia opened her mouth to challenge her and then closed it again, and Dulcie knew perfectly well why. It was an open secret to the staff that, despite his advancing years, Mr Selfridge was prone to passions that led to him indulging the current recipient of his feelings with expensive gifts from the store.

  Delighted by Lydia’s heightened furious colour and obvious inability to refute her lie, Dulcie carried the case back to where she had got it, placing it carefully on top of the pile.

  ‘Come along, David,’ Lydia commanded her escort in a sharp voice, turning on her heel so that her back was towards both Dulcie and David.

  Seizing her chance, Dulcie turned to him and told him nonchalantly, ‘If you was ever to feel like dancing, I go dancing at the Hammersmith Palais most Saturday evenings.’

  The look he gave her in response was one of amused admiration. Miss Iron Knickers might think she’d got him well and truly hooked, Dulcie thought with some satisfaction, but she, Dulcie, certainly didn’t think so.

  ‘David . . .’

  ‘Coming,’ David answered as he turned to follow Lydia.

  The little shop girl didn’t hold back when it came to putting herself forward, and there had been a look in her eye that he had liked. David had a weakness for girls like Dulcie, no doubt because his paternal grandmother had been a Gaiety Girl before she had ‘snared’, to use his own disapproving mother’s word, his grandfather. His paternal grandfather’s regrettable lapse of good taste was not something David’s mother approved of. Her family was stoutly county and rigidly proper. His father might be a judge and his mother’s family might have come over with William the Conqueror, but there was no money in the family, which was why his mother in particular was so keen to see him engaged to Lydia, whose father might be merely a director at Selfridges but whose mother came from a family of wealthy mill owners and was likely to inherit a very nice sum of money indeed when her own elderly father died.

  The basket she had filled with the new season’s root vegetables from Covent Garden was beginning to weigh heavily on her arm as Olive headed for Article Row, so when Sergeant Dawson came out of the police station just as she was passing it and offered, ‘Let me carry that for you,’ she was rather grateful to hand the basket over to him.

  ‘I hadn’t realised how heavy the veggies would be. I got a piece of scrag end of mutton yesterday and I thought I’d make a nice tasty mutton casserole with it for the girls, and thicken it up with some veggies.’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  Tall, well set up, and just turned forty, his dark brown, slightly curly hair now covered by his helmet, Sergeant Dawson looked very smart in his police uniform. Despite everything he and his wife had been through with the illness and then the loss of their son, Sergeant Dawson always had a kind look in his hazel eyes and a friendly word for everyone.

  Olive felt very sorry for both him and his wife. Nancy might complain that it was unneighbourly of Mrs Dawson to keep herself to herself in the way that she did, but Olive felt that that was the sergeant’s wife’s way of dealing with the sorrow of her loss, and that they shouldn’t talk about her behind her back.

  ‘I must admit I’m partial to a good mutton casserole,’ Sergeant Dawson confided to her. ‘My ma used to make it. Thickened it with barley, she did.’

  ‘I do the same,’ Olive told him with a smile.

  ‘I miss Ma’s casseroles, but Mrs Dawson – well, she doesn’t see the sense of making a big bowl of casserole when there’s just the two of us to eat it. Working out all right, is it, having your lodgers?’

  ‘Very well,’ Olive answered. ‘My Tilly and Agnes – that’s the little orphan girl – get on really well together, and if Sally – that’s the nurse – has her way we’ll be eating our own veggies next year as she’s taken over the garden.’

  ‘The other one looks a bit of a flighty sort,’ the sergeant opined.

  ‘Dulcie.’ Olive sighed ruefully, appreciating the sergeant’s understanding tone. ‘I dare say she doesn’t mean any harm, but I do worry about the effect she might have on Tilly and Agnes. Tilly has already started hinting that she and Agnes are old enough now to go out dancing, but I’d rather see them going to dances at the church hall than the Hammersmith Palais, which is where Dulcie likes to go.’

  ‘It must be hard work for you, having the four of them to cook and clean for.’

  They both paused to cross over the road and then Olive answered, ‘Not really. Tilly’s very good, and Agnes of course is used to helping out with being at the orphanage. I have to tell her off sometimes for wanting to do too much. After all, she is paying me to have her lodging with us. To be honest I like having the house filled up a bit; makes it seem more like a home than there just being me and Tilly there. And they’re no trouble really. Sally, with her being a nurse, keeps her room spotless, and even Dulcie is the tidy sort. Mind you, she is prone to taking more than her fair share of the hot water, especially on Saturday when she’s getting dressed up to go out.’ Olive sighed, remembering how envious Tilly had looked when she’d watched Dulcie setting off for her evening out. ‘I dare say that if I hadn’t got the girls lodging with me I’d have been asked to take in a couple of refugees. Not that I’d have minded that, although Nancy next door to me is dead set against them.’

  ‘No, she’s never liked foreigners, hasn’t Nancy.’

  They exchanged smiles.

  ‘Tilly’s got Agnes going to St John Ambulance with her, so that should keep them out of too much mischief, although I have to admit that I do worry about them being out during the blackout. I’ve got them both little torches and warned them to keep away from the pavement edge. Sally says they’ve had several injured people come into the hospital since the blackout started, because of not being able to see where there’re cars coming, with them having to have their lights covered. It’s going to get worse as well at the end of this month when the clocks go back and we stop having British Summer Time.’

  ‘Had to attend a nasty accident myself last night, as it happens,’ Sergeant Dawson told her. ‘A young lady had driven straight into a cyclist and killed him. She was beside herself, of course, and had to be taken to hospital for the shock.’

  ‘Oh, what a dreadful thing to happen, and there Mrs Morrison from Floris Street and I were both wishing that we could drive when the vicar’s wife told us that we’ve been offered the use of a small van for the WVS, but as none of us can drive we’d have to pass up on it. There’s quite a bit of competing between the WVS groups to be th
e best equipped and of course those groups that have drivers and transport are very much top of the heap.’ Olive laughed. ‘Now, though, after what you’ve just said I’m rather glad that I can’t drive.’

  ‘You mustn’t say that. In fact, if this war gets as bad as some reckon it will, the Government will be wanting women to learn to drive.’ Sergeant Dawson paused and then said hesitantly, ‘If you and Mrs Morrison were wanting to learn to drive, and since you’re saying that you’ve been offered the use of a van, I could teach you, if you like?’

  ‘You can drive?’

  A rueful smile curled his mouth, making him look younger and far more carefree. ‘Learned almost as a kid at the back end of the last war, and once you’ve learned it’s something you never forget.’

  ‘Well, it’s very generous of you to offer. Of course, Mrs Morrison’s husband would have to agree.’

  ‘Of course, but the offer’s there if you want it.’ They had reached Article Row now but instead of handing her basket back to her when they arrived at number 1, the sergeant shook his head when Olive made to take it from him.

  ‘I’ll walk you to your gate with it.’

  ‘I’ll send you and Mrs Dawson a bowl of the casserole, as a thank you, seeing as you’ve carried the veggies home for me,’ Olive told him with a smile of her own.

  He was such a kind man, offering to teach her and Mrs Morrison to drive, Olive thought five minutes later as she went into her kitchen. Mrs Windle would be pleased if he did succeed in teaching them, Olive knew. She had been quite crestfallen at the thought of having to turn down the offer of the van.

  From the kitchen window she could see Sally working in the garden and she went out to her.

  ‘I’m just going to put the kettle on and make a cuppa before I start on the veggies for the mutton stew. Would you like a cup?’

  ‘I’d love one,’ Sally admitted. It hadn’t felt particularly warm when she had initially come out into the garden but now, after lifting the turf from the plot she had marked out, she was feeling very warm – and very thirsty. ‘I’m ready for a break so I’ll come back with you.’

  The minute Olive opened the kitchen door, Sally could smell the wonderful aroma, sniffing appreciatively as she removed her Wellington boots and left them outside.

  ‘I put the stew in this morning to let it cook slowly,’ Olive told her.

  ‘My mother used to make a delicious stew and she always swore by cooking it slowly all day.’ A sad nostalgic smile tugged at Sally’s mouth and to her own surprise she heard herself telling Olive, ‘I had some good news today. Matron is upgrading me to the position of staff nurse and she’s recommended that I train to be a sister. I’m thrilled, of course, but I couldn’t help wishing that my mother was still alive so that I could tell her.’

  Lighting the gas beneath the kettle she had just filled, Olive turned to look at her. Sally, for all her maturity, wasn’t really that much older than her own daughter and she knew how she would have felt in Sally’s mother’s shoes, so it seemed completely natural to her to go over to Sally and give her a firm hug, before telling her gently, ‘That’s what your mother would have wanted to do, I know. I’m so sorry you’ve had such sadness to contend with, Sally.’

  Olive’s unexpected tenderness brought tears to Sally’s eyes. It had been so long since she had felt the warmth of a caring maternal hug.

  ‘Your father is still alive, though, you said,’ Olive began carefully, but immediately Sally shook her head.

  ‘I know what you’re going to suggest but there’s no going back. I couldn’t. I couldn’t stand in the kitchen that used to be my mother’s and watch the person who was my best friend usurping my mother’s role. They didn’t even wait a decent length of time. I don’t know how they could do what they’ve done, but I do know that I don’t want anything to do with them any more.’

  Poor Sally, Olive thought compassionately. The kettle had started to boil, the steam activating its shrill whistle. As she went to make the tea, tactfully Olive changed the subject.

  ‘I don’t know what you think but I’m to have driving lessons. Sergeant Dawson has offered to teach me. Our WVS group have been offered the use of a van. It belongs to the Lords, from the drapers in Norfolk Street, or rather it belongs to their son, Gerry, but he’s been called up. They don’t need it because Mr Lord has his own van that he uses for the business and Mavis, Mrs Lord, flatly refuses to learn to drive so Mr Lord has offered it to the WVS.’

  ‘I think it’s an excellent idea,’ Sally approved immediately.

  ‘Of course, it won’t just be me he’s teaching,’ Olive hastened to add, pouring them each a cup of tea. ‘There’ll be two of us. Me and Mrs Morrison.’

  ‘It’s a great opportunity – for you and for the war effort,’ Sally enthused.

  * * *

  ‘Mum, can I have a word with you, just between us?’ Tilly asked her mother quietly as Olive checked on the dumplings she had added to the stew earlier.

  ‘Of course you can, love. Why don’t you go upstairs to my room and I’ll follow you up there in a tick?’ Olive told her daughter just as quietly.

  With the wireless on and Dulcie complaining about the difficult customer she’d had in who’d insisted that Dulcie had sold her a shade of lipstick that didn’t suit her and that she wanted to change, Olive knew that the others wouldn’t have overheard, although what it was that her daughter wanted to discuss, she had no idea.

  Wiping her hands on her apron, Olive went up and found her daughter, standing in front of the window in Olive’s own bedroom.

  Sitting down on the edge of her bed, automatically smoothing the soft, slightly faded blue satin coverlet, she patted it and invited ‘Come and sit down here, Tilly. Is something wrong?’

  When Tilly shook her head and answered firmly, ‘No,’ Olive admitted to feeling relieved.

  ‘So what is it that you want to talk to me about?’

  ‘It’s just, well, you know that there’s to be this dance at the church hall and you said that I could go, and Agnes is going to go too?’

  ‘Yes? Have you and Agnes fallen out and you don’t want her to go with you?’

  Tilly laughed. ‘No, Mum, it’s nothing like that. I like Agnes, I really do. She’s so sweet and kind. No, what it is, it that . . .’ Tilly had bent her head and was plucking at the hem of her navy-blue cardigan – a little giveaway habit that was familiar to Olive from her daughter’s childhood and which meant that Tilly felt uncomfortable about something.

  ‘Well, it’s just that poor Agnes only has hand-me-down clothes. I know I’ve given her a couple of things, but what I was thinking, Mum, was how she is going to feel when we go to the dance and everyone else there is wearing something nice and she isn’t. And it isn’t because I’ll be with her and I’m bothered about what people think. Agnes is my friend now and it wouldn’t bother me if she went to the dance in that awful brown dress she first came here in. It’s for Agnes’s sake, Mum. I don’t want her to feel out of things and uncomfortable.’

  What her daughter meant was that she didn’t want Agnes to be hurt, Olive recognised. Maternal love and gratitude filled her. She had been so lucky with Tilly. She’d grown from a happy loving baby into an equally loving young woman.

  Modestly Olive gave no thought to the fact that she might have been instrumental in helping to form her daughter’s concern for others, instead taking Tilly’s hand in her own and giving it a loving shake as she told her, ‘You’re right, Tilly, and I’m cross with myself for not thinking of it.’

  ‘The thing is, Mum, I know that Agnes doesn’t earn very much and that she sends money to the orphanage because she feels she wants to help them for bringing her up, and I was wondering if we couldn’t perhaps get her a pretty frock as a bit of a present?’

  ‘Oh, Tilly . . .’ Olive hugged her daughter tightly. ‘You are so like your dad. He was generous to a fault and always thinking of others as well. Look, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. I’ll tell Agnes that I�
�m taking you out to get some material because you need a couple of new things since you’ve grown out of last winter’s clothes, which is true, and that I’ve been putting a bit of money to one side from Agnes’s rent because I thought that she’d probably need things as well but that she wouldn’t have thought of it with always having had the orphanage to provide clothes for her.’

  ‘Mum, can we really?’ Tilly’s eyes were sparkling as brightly as any stars, the delight and excitement in her expression melting Olive’s heart. The income from their lodgers was bringing in a modestly comfortable sum and, always thrifty, Olive had been putting money to one side just in case one or more of her lodgers left. She had more than enough saved to be able to afford to buy a couple or so lengths of fabric for both girls, and to get the clothes made up.

  ‘Yes,’ she confirmed with a smile, ‘we can.’ What she’d got in mind was a couple of lengths of woollen fabric, so that a nice costume could be made up for Tilly – perhaps with two skirts to make sure she got her wear out of the jacket – something she could wear for Sunday best now and for work next winter, along with a length for an everyday skirt for each of the girls, and then something pretty for winter frocks for them both, which they could wear to the Church’s socials and dances. If she went about it the right way she felt sure she could get Miss Thomas, the local dressmaker, who also attended their church, to give her a special price for such a good order.

  ‘We’ll go and have a look for the fabric tomorrow.’

  ‘Could we go to Portobello Market?’ Tilly begged her excitedly. ‘We could make a real day of it. That’s where Dulcie got the fabric for her skirt. She says you can get ever such a good bargain there if you know who to ask. We could ask her where she got hers.’

  Olive forced herself to smile, pleased that, since Dulcie worked on Saturdays, Tilly would be unable to suggest that they asked her to go with them. ‘Well, I was thinking of somewhere closer. Portobello Market is a bit of a trek, I’d thought of somewhere like Leather Lane.’