Page 29

Chapter 29

August 1911

‘School starts next week,’ said Ursula.

‘We will need to buy you some new pencils.’

John had already left for work, and Finlay had vanished upstairs.

‘I know it does.’ Ann was slumped in her chair at the dining table.

‘And I’m the only one in the house going back.

It’s so unfair.’

‘Finlay will be studying too, though.’

‘I know, but he’s nearly eighteen now and he’ll be at university and that’s quite different.

No more school uniform, no more homework jotters, no more rules.

’

Ursula reached for the last lonely piece of toast on the rack.

‘That’s mostly true, as far as it goes, but Finlay’s life is not going to be a carefree sprint from lecture to tearoom with no work required in between.

If he wants to succeed, he will have to work very hard.

’ She spread the toast with salted butter.

‘Aren’t you looking forward to seeing your friends again?

’

‘I suppose. Some of them have been away from Edinburgh for weeks and weeks. I’m not sure I would want to do that.

I like being here with you and Isobel and I have my herb garden.

I mean who would take care of all the watering it if I wasn’t here?

We haven’t had any rain since the start of the summer.

I have been counting the days off in my diary.

’ Ann frowned. ‘Imagine if there isn’t any rain until September.

We might have no water in the taps, and my plants will die.

’

‘I don’t think it will come to that.

’ Ursula sincerely hoped the weather would break soon.

Her corsets were extremely uncomfortable and getting very stained with perspiration.

‘If there is only one week of your holidays left, we must make the most of it. What would you like to do apart from going to buy new pencils? Perhaps a new book? Or I could take you for lunch at Café Vegetaria?’

‘I’m not sure.

’

‘Would you like to help me put some pictures into my album, now that your father has collected them from the photographer?’

Ann brightened a little.

‘Could I have some photographs of everyone? You know, in frames, so I could put them on my dressing table.’

‘I don’t see why not.

’

‘You and Finlay and Father. I would like to be able to see the pictures when I get up in the morning and before I go to bed at night.’

‘But you see us all every day anyway.’

‘Nonetheless,’ Ann tried the word out, ‘I would like to have photographs of my own.’ All signs of lethargy gone, she slid off the chair.

‘I will get ready straight away and we can make a start. Do you know what we are having for dinner tonight?’

‘Haricot bean and tomato casserole with sage and walnut dumplings.’ Despite the heat, Ursula knew this news would be well received.

‘That sounds lovely, dumplings are my favourite.’ Ann’s shoes clattered along the tiled floor in the hall, and as she put her foot on the first of the carpeted stairs, she began to count under her breath.

*

‘Who is this?’ Ann looked closely at a photograph of a couple in their best clothes.

A man with a large grey beard and heavy moustache seemed to look back at her, and in front of him sat a small woman who wore a dress with a lace collar, her shoes peeking out at the hem.

She didn’t have a hair out of place; it was as though she had been to have it styled especially for the occasion.

‘My parents.’

‘Tell me about them.’

‘My father was an engineer, just as Finlay wants to be. He invented things and taught at a college for apprentices. I think he would have liked your curiosity; he never minded answering my questions, even when they were probably a bit foolish.’

‘What was he called?’

‘Bernhardt. He was from Germany, and he came to London when he was a very young child, just two or three years old. And then when he grew up, he changed his name.’

‘You can do that?’

‘You can. There are legal papers that need to be dealt with but I don’t think it’s very complicated.

He was Bernhardt Schmidt, and he became Bernard Smith.

’

‘Why did he want to change it?’

‘I’m not sure.

He never spoke about it.

Perhaps it was easier for him.

He didn’t have an accent; he sounded like you and me.

Maybe he just wanted not to have to answer questions about where he came from all the time.

’

‘I didn’t know you could change your name,’ said Ann quietly.

‘I thought you were stuck with whatever you were given.’

Ursula pressed on.

‘And this is my mother, she was called Veronica.’

‘Speedwell.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I read it in my flower book. Those little purple flowers that we get in the lawn if the gardener doesn’t mow it often enough.

They are called speedwell, and the proper official name for them is Veronica.

’

‘You’ve taught me something today.

’ Ursula touched the photograph with her forefinger.

‘She was a kind woman, but she didn’t always understand me.

I think she would have liked to know she was named after a pretty flower.

’

‘Why are you called Ursula?’

‘I was named after my grandmother, my father’s mother.

’ She spread the loose pictures out on the table.

‘Have you decided which of these new photographs you would like for your frames?’