Mourning Doves. Helen Forrester

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       Chapter Four

      Eddie Fairbanks insisted on walking with the ladies down the sandy lane to Meols Station, and waiting with them until the steam train chugged in. He recommended that, instead of changing to the electric train at Birkenhead Park Station, they should get a cab from that station to Mr Billings’ office. ‘Being as it’s getting late, and his office is nearer to Park than it is to Birkenhead Central.’

      They took his advice, and were fortunate in catching small, rotund Mr Billings just as he was putting on his overcoat ready to go home.

      As the ladies were ushered in, after being announced by his fourteen-year-old office boy, he resignedly took off his bowler hat again and hung it on the coat stand, then went to sit at his desk. As the women entered, he half rose in his chair and smiled politely at them.

      The office boy sullenly pulled out chairs for the forlorn couple. Because of their late arrival, he would be late home and his mother would scold him. He returned to the outer office to sit on his high stool and depressedly contemplate the beckoning spring sunshine which lit the untidy builder’s yard outside.

      Louise had retired behind her mourning veil, and Mr Billings eyed her with some trepidation: widows could be very tiresome, particularly a real lady like this Gilmore woman; they never understood what you told them. Since she showed no indication of an ability to speak, he turned his eyes upon her companion, a thin sickly-looking woman, dressed in mourning black. She must be the daughter. He smiled again.

      ‘Good afternoon, ladies. How can I help you?’ he inquired politely of Celia. Then, before Celia could respond, he added, ‘May I express my condolences at your sad loss. Very sad, indeed.’

      There was a murmur of thanks from behind Louise’s veil, and Celia blinked back tears. They were not only tears because of the loss of her autocratic father, but tears for herself because she had little idea of how to deal with business matters – and Mr Billings represented a solid weight of them.

      With what patience he could muster after a long, trying day, Mr Billings waited for one of them to speak, and, after a few moments, Celia nervously wetted her lips, and explained about the need to get the cottage at Meols into liveable shape.

      While he considered this, Mr Billings brushed his moustache with one stout red finger and then twisted the waxed points at each end of it. He said slowly, ‘Oh, aye, it needs a bit of doing up if you’re going to live in it yourselves. It was rented for a good many years to a Miss Hornby after your auntie died; she was crippled and she never did aught about aught. When she died, Mr Gilmore saw no point in doing repairs on a place he didn’t use – and the rent wasn’t much. So I had the ground-floor windows boarded up – they being expensive to replace if they were broken by vandals. And that’s how it’s been for a couple of years now.’

      He clasped his hands over his waistcoat and leaned back in his chair.

      Celia told him about the broken bedroom window and asked if he could recommend a builder who could repair it quickly, and anything else that needed doing, like new floorboards in the hall bedroom.

      He immediately wrote out on the back of one of his business cards the name and address of a Hoylake man, Ben Aspen, who, he assured Celia, was as honest as the day. ‘I’ll get my own man to put a new windowpane in for you tomorrow – I got a handyman I keep to do small repairs. Later on, you can tell Ben Aspen what else you want doing.’

      She was greatly relieved and thanked him, as she carefully put the card into her handbag.

      ‘Don’t mention it, Miss,’ he replied, as he turned to her mother, to address the daunting veil. ‘Seeing as how you’re here, Ma’am, I’d like to speak to you about your property in Birkenhead.’

      Louise sniffed back her tears and lifted her veil sufficiently to apply a black handkerchief to mop up under it. ‘Yes?’ she fluttered nervously.

      She jumped as Mr Billings shouted to his young clerk, still fidgeting in the outer office, ‘George, bring the Gilmore file.’

      Muttering maledictions under his breath, the youngster got down the file and brought it in and laid it in front of Mr Billings. When he was dismissed he bowed obsequiously to the ladies as he passed them.

      They ignored him.

      ‘Now, let me see.’ Mr Billings rustled through an inordinate number of pieces of paper, while Celia watched anxiously.

      ‘Humph.’ He leaned back in his chair again, and addressed Louise. ‘Now, yesterday afternoon a Mr Albert Gilmore come in. Said he was your trustee – when he said it, I thought for a second that you was passed on as well as Mr Gilmore. Anyway, he says that I’m to send the cheque for your rents to him, like I always sent them to Mr Timothy Gilmore – prompt each quarter day.’

      Celia drew in her breath sharply, and opened her mouth to protest, but, seeing her expression, Mr Billings continued, ‘Yes, Miss. That was my reaction, too. Them houses belong to you, Mrs Gilmore – according to my notes, they’re your dowry, and, therefore, they aren’t part of Mr Gilmore’s estate; and so I tell him – and he was really put out. But I said to him as it is one thing to send the rents to your hubby, Ma’am, for which I have had your written permission these many years – in fact, my father had it before me – but another to hand them over to a stranger I don’t know.’

      He straightened up and looked at Louise, rightly proud of his personal rectitude.

      Both Louise and Celia gasped at this information, and Celia felt sick, because it tended to confirm her poor opinion of Cousin Albert. It did not occur to her that Albert merely wanted to check that Mr Billings handed over the correct sum each month.

      Louise was so shaken that she actually threw back her veil, to reveal a plump, blotched face, which might have still been pretty in happier circumstances. ‘But he has no right,’ she faltered.

      ‘Precisely, Ma’am.’

      Mr Billings smiled knowingly at her. ‘But it so happened, Ma’am, that I was a trifle late making up me books this quarter and didn’t do your account till this morning. One tenant, Mrs Halloran, being late with her rent – she owed five shillings – I held back to give her a chance to get up to date before I reported to Mr Gilmore that she was in arrears. I read your sad news in the obituary column, Ma’am – and I’m proper sorry about it, СКАЧАТЬ