Belfast 1922
Chapter 1 Belfast 1922
Mrs Jane Best paused in front of the portrait of her late husband Charles and took a deep breath. She smoothed her skirt over her slim figure and pinched her cheeks to add some colour to her pale complexion. Her black widows’ garb was softened by the addition of a ruffle of white lace over the high neckline and at her wrists. Pulling back her shoulders, she held her head high. Now that she was well past sixty, she had no wish to turn into one of those wizened old women with hunched shoulders and faltering steps. With an affectionate nod to Charles, she turned, opened the dining-room door and summoned Melissa with her index finger. Melissa’s terrified expression strengthened Mrs Best’s resolve as the two women made their way to the parlour.
“Good afternoon,” Mrs Best greeted Mr Jones, the grandfather of her latest young lady boarder. The room was in the shade of the afternoon sun and a faint breeze fluttered through the open windows bringing the hum of bees and the sweet scent of roses in their last flush of summer.
Mr Jones rose to greet her, his cap in hand. Melissa followed behind Mrs Best and stood partially hidden and nodded her greeting, her hands clasped in front of her, her head bent as she glanced upwards for a second before fixing her eyes on a spot on the floor in front of Mr Jones. A flash of recognition momentarily unsettled Mrs Best and she felt a thud in her chest at the snapshot in her head of a younger Drake Jones. He hadn’t changed much. The older versions face was drawn and weather-beaten, his hair scarce and his skin pulled tight over his skeletal frame. She fixed her public smile in place.
“I am very pleased to meet you, Mr Jones. Please, sit. Can I offer you some tea?”
“Thank you, yes, a cup of tea would be very nice indeed,” he replied, a question on his face as he appeared to study her, his back ramrod straight as he perched on the edge of the sofa.
Mrs Best began to feel uncomfortable under his steady gaze and shifted in her seat. She struggled to make conversation and found her gaze resting on the portraits of the Best family adorning the walls until the silence was interrupted by a knock on the door which heralded the arrival of the tea trolley and she rose to serve her guests. Small talk was exchanged over tea and sweet cake before Mr Jones set his empty teacup back on the trolley.
“I beg your pardon Mam, but you seem familiar to me. Have we met before?”
“I don’t think so Mr Jones, I am sure I would remember you. But you may see some family resemblance in me. Can I ask if you served in the military at some stage?”
“Why yes, I served with the Connaught Rangers.”
“Well then, that may explain it. My brother served with the Rangers, as did my husband.”
“I remember Charles Best but your brother?”
Mrs Best handed him the china cup, “James Langton.”
“Of course, I see the resemblance now. I didn’t know him well, and it was a very long time ago, but I do remember him. I am so sorry, Mam, pardon my intrusion.”
“Not at all, Mr Jones, time is a great healer. I am fortunate to have this house. It keeps me busy every day. Now, if I may Mr Jones, can I ask what brings you here?”
“Why Melissa, of course, Mrs Best. While I must thank you for providing her with such fine lodgings, my granddaughter’s place is at home, with her brother and me.”
Mrs Best watched those beady eyes flick towards Melissa who remained silent, tension oozing out of every muscle in her tiny frame. Her hands shook where they lay clasped in her lap. Mrs Best took a breath and went over the speech rehearsed in her head. Keeping a firm but pleasant smile on her face she looked at Mr Jones.
“Melissa is very happy here, Mr Jones. She has made friends and works nearby. Surely it is more convenient for her to remain at Riverdale House?”
“Convenient for whom?” he hesitated, his forehead creased in puzzlement, “This is a family matter, Mrs Best, …and I don’t mean to be rude, but it really is none of your business. Melissa is my granddaughter and I want her to come home…with me…now.”
“I see,” Mrs Best gave a tight smile, “but Mr Jones, as I said, Melissa has no wish to return to your home. Melissa has settled in very nicely and we are very happy to have her here. I can assure you we will take great care of your granddaughter. Now, if you will excuse me? I have menus to prepare.”
“My granddaughter is leaving with me.”
Mr Jones stood, his puny chest stuck out as he pulled his shoulders back, his chin jutted forward, and his eyes glittered with a malice Mrs Best recognised. Mrs Best raised herself slowly to her full height and glared at Mr Jones. Her icy tone silenced him.
“Melissa is staying here, Mr Jones. She is of an age where she can decide where she wants to live, and Melissa wants to live in Riverdale House. Good day sir.”
Mr Jones stood, his mouth opening and closing like a fish squirming on a hook. Flashing a look of pure hatred at Mrs Best he shook his closed fist at Melissa and roared at her,
“You will regret this, my girl,” saliva spitting out and onto the floor.
Mrs Best strode to the parlour door.
“Good day sir.”
Mrs Williams was waiting in the hall and escorted Mr Jones out the front door. Mrs Best stood at the parlour door until she heard the bang of the heavy front door closing him out and the peace of Riverdale House settle again. She smiled as Mrs Williams entered the room and acknowledged her sigh of relief.
“He is gone, Melissa.”
Mrs Best sat beside her on the couch and took her hand.
“I doubt he will be back, but if he does, we will send him on his way again. We will not allow him to hurt you again.”
She took a delicate lace handkerchief from her pocket and taking Melissa’s chin she turned her face towards her and dabbed away her tears. Her reward was a grateful smile.
“Thank you, Mrs Best, Mrs Williams, thank you both so much.”
Melissa had only been with them for a few weeks. She had started in the Linen Mills earlier that year and had become friendly with Sarah, one of Mrs Best’s young lady lodgers. Riverdale House had a reputation throughout the province as one of the best boarding houses for young ladies. Mrs Best interviewed all her potential boarders, choosing only those that she felt were a good fit for her existing clientele. Riverdale House offered spotless accommodation and excellent food of a standard that wouldn’t be amiss in a top hotel. Every evening at seven o’clock she presided over the dining room table. She facilitated conversation, ensuring each of her boarders was made feel at home and that each point of view considered and appreciated, something that been quite difficult after the massive upheavals in Ireland over the past few years. The division of Ireland had a major impact on Mrs Best, although her young ladies would never have guessed it. She had been raised in Louth, a county which now, conveniently for her, lay on the Southern side of the border. With her birthplace in a different jurisdiction, Jane Best was hopeful that her secret would stay hidden forever and she could continue her work in Riverdale House.
With Melissa safely ensconced upstairs and Mrs Williams returned to her dinner preparations, Mrs Best stood in the hall and took a moment to compose herself. She would never have agreed to meet the man if she had realised who he was. Later this evening she would discuss it with Mrs Williams in the privacy of their parlour, but it could wait until their day’s work was over. She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror and started as James’s grey eyes stared back at her. The creak of the dining room door opening shook her out of her reverie.
“Tommy, will you oil the hinges on that door, please. That creak grates on my nerves and we don’t want our young ladies annoyed by something so mundane.”
Tommy nodded, “Yes Mam, I will get to it straight away. Mrs Williams asked me to let you know that dinner will be served slightly later this evening.”
“Thank you, Tommy.”
Mrs Best gave an involuntary shudder, ‘someone’s walking over my grave,’ she thought and heard in her head an echo of another era and her grandmother using the same expression. She pulled her shoulders back, ‘stuff and nonsense,’ and made her way to the dining room to set the table for the evening meal, her head held high and her public persona back on view.
Later that evening Mrs Best swept into the dining room.
“Good evening ladies.”
A chorus of hellos and welcome rang around the table. Mrs Best noted that Melissa was sandwiched by Sarah on one side and Anne, one of her older lodgers, on the other. Mrs Best smiled. Once again Mrs Williams’s considerable people skills were to the fore. Agnes Williams had been with her since she first came to Belfast as a widow over forty years ago and her most loyal friend. Together they were a formidable force for good in the lives of their young lady boarders. Most of their young ladies were originally from rural areas and had moved to the city for work. For women who worked in the big houses, accommodation was usually part of the package but for those who came to work in the mills and the industries that sprung up around them, women needed a safe place to live. And Riverdale House provided the home away from home that the girls needed, and their parents insisted on. Mrs Best would never identify as a suffragette, but she believed in education, formal or otherwise. She encouraged debate around the table during and after their evening meal.
Tonight, with the newspapers full of the funeral of Michael Collins, her ladies had much to distract them.
“Such a tragedy, Mrs Best, such a loss,” one of her young ladies wiped a tear with a lacy handkerchief.
“He was a murderer. How can you shed tears after what that man did? Michael Collins has been responsible for the deaths of thousands.”
“He was a hero, his death is a great loss to everyone,” a quiet, yet decidedly firm voice, cut across the table.
“And such a handsome man. He wasn’t married you know, such a loss.”
“He may not have been married but he was betrothed.”
“Ach, the poor girl, how sad.”
“No loss to any of us,” a dark-haired young lady whose father was a prominent member of the Orange Order, “The man was a terrorist.”
“Ladies, whatever our opinion of Mr Collins, he was a man cut down in his prime. Who knows what he could have achieved in the future? He managed to put an end to that dreadful war against England and signs are the violence in our own part of the country is abating,” Mrs Best’s calm tones silenced the murmuring around the table. “Compromise ladies. Never be afraid to voice your opinion but always respect the opinion of others. Remember that and you will get far in life.”
As the debate continued around the formal dining table, preparations were underway for the evening meal in the kitchen.
“What are we having today Mrs Williams?” Tommy sniffed the air trying to guess as he washed his hands in the scullery.
“A nice mutton stew, Tommy, and plenty of it,” Mrs Williams smiled.
Tommy was always hungry. Tall and lean, he looked like he hadn’t eaten a good meal in months, yet every night he sat at her table and devoured a dinner for two men. She tried to fatten him up with extra dumplings in his stew and lots of bread but to no avail.
“Sure, you can’t fatten a thoroughbred,” he told her, and she had to agree with him.
Lilly sighed in despair as Tommy tucked into the huge steaming bowl in front of him.
“Where does he put it?” she said, as she lifted her fork and picked delicately through the food on her plate, removing the dumplings and plonking them into Tommy’s bowl.
Mrs Williams sat at the table and bowed her head.
“Katie, will you say grace please?”
Tommy dropped his fork, murmuring apologies in the general direction of Mrs Williams, his face colouring. Mrs Williams patted his hand and Tommy relaxed; eyes closed as he said ‘amen’ before tucking in again.
“A long day in the garden can give a growing lad quite an appetite,” Mrs Williams smiled at him. Tommy worked hard all year round and they were eating the fruits of his labour. The carrots, onions and potatoes in the stew and an apple and blackcurrant crumble for dessert. The formal gardens were laid out in lawn with rose beds to the front of the house and a mixture of evergreens and herbaceous borders outside the formal dining room. Hedging and blackcurrant bushes divided the rear garden with the kitchen garden neatly laid out in rows of vegetables, herb beds and fruit trees.
Katie’s chair scraped on the flagstone floor as she fidgeted in her seat. Mrs Williams looked up from her plate on the scrubbed table and looked around her. Tommy sat on her left while Katie, Lilly and Mary sat on her right. Mary had been with them for twenty years and was a godsend in the kitchen, then went home each evening to her family. Katie and Lilly were much younger and lived in the garrets. They kept the brasses polished and the silver shinning as well as scrubbing the floors. It was a happy household, upstairs and down but Mrs Williams favourite room was her private parlour where she retired every evening with her dearest friend, Mrs Jane Best and they could relax in each other’s company and be themselves.
