Page 22 of The Gathering Storm (Morland Dynasty #36)

He was already dressed in his suit and tie and well-polished shoes for his job at the bank – the same bank where his father Robert had worked before he was called up.

Robbie had died in a Malta war hospital in 1918 of typhoid contracted in Palestine, where he had been posted after basic training.

Jeremy had been only six years old and didn’t remember his father, but the bank remembered his long service and had been glad to give Jeremy a job when the time came, and to nurture his career.

‘I wanted to talk to you, and you go out so early, it’s hard to catch you.’ He had caught from his mother Ethel a little of her manner, which was always to sound complaining.

‘You don’t have to be at work until ten, which is very nice for you, but I have work to do. Sheep don’t keep to office hours,’ she said.

‘The bank doesn’t open until ten, but I have to be there at nine.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ Polly said impatiently. ‘What do you want to talk to me about?’

He bit his lip. ‘I’m – I’m hoping to get married.’

Polly stared. He seemed so raw and unfinished, but he would be twenty-four in June.

It was hard to think of any of her encumbrances as having lives of their own.

It was a fact that she never bothered to think about them or ask them how they were getting on.

Her father, who had taken them all in because he loved family and could never get enough of it, would have known everything about them.

So she tried for a pleasant tone as she said, ‘I didn’t even know you were walking out with anyone. Do I know her?’

‘Yes, you do. It’s Amelia Robb,’ he said, fixing her with the hopeful expression of a dog by the table. Polly frowned. ‘She works for you,’ Jeremy urged. ‘At Makepeace’s.’

‘Oh, not Miss Robb of the lingerie department?’ Polly placed her now – a small young woman, with a chalky-pink complexion and curly fair hair.

She had round blue eyes, which gave her, Polly always thought, rather the look of a budgerigar.

But she was a good saleswoman, with more determination of character than her size suggested.

‘That’s right,’ Jeremy said, with a blissful look. ‘We’ve been walking out for a year now – a year next month.’

‘But can you afford to get married?’ Polly asked, with the feeling that her burdens were about to increase.

Her father would have invited Jeremy to bring his wife to live at Morland Place – it was how he had ended up with Robbie, Ethel and their brood – but she wasn’t sure she wanted to commit herself to another generation.

Marriage was generally followed by the arrival of children. Where would it end?

‘Not immediately, but we’re saving up. And we’d like to become engaged.’ He blushed slightly. ‘She’s a very popular girl.’

‘Oh, and you’re afraid if you don’t make it official she may go off with someone else.’

It was obviously what he thought, but he didn’t want to say so. ‘We love each other,’ he said. ‘She’s a grand girl.’

‘I’m sure she is.’ She decided to put down a marker, so he understood she would not be keeping him when he was married. ‘Where would you live?’ she asked.

‘We’ve thought about that,’ Jeremy said.

‘There are some nice little terraced houses in Bootham you can rent for about twenty-five shillings a week. I’m earning four pounds sixteen now, and I ought to get a rise in June.

We should be able to manage nicely. And, of course, I hope to get promoted,’ he added modestly, ‘and eventually work my way up to manager, and then we could have somewhere bigger. But it will be enough for us to start off.’

‘I had no idea you were earning that much,’ Polly said, remembering wryly that Jessie had said a year ago she ought to charge Jeremy rent. ‘Well, that sounds all right.’ Something occurred to her. ‘Oh – I suppose you’ll be taking Miss Robb away from me, if you get married.’

‘Certainly,’ he said, rather pompously. ‘I wouldn’t have any wife of mine working.’

Any wife of mine sounded as if he intended to have them in multiples, but she didn’t tease him. ‘So what did you want from me? Not my permission, surely.’

He blushed again. ‘Oh – well – no. I just thought you ought to know. And – well – I hoped you’d be there when I tell Mother, and sort of support me.’

‘She doesn’t know?’

‘No, and I’m afraid she may object – say I’m too young and so on.’

Ethel was devoted to her sons, and Polly thought she might well object to losing one. ‘Well, I’ll support your right to make your own decisions, of course,’ she said. ‘You’re over twenty-one. I just wish you weren’t depriving me of a good employee.’

‘I only met her because she worked for you,’ Jeremy said. ‘I bought a tie at Makepeace’s when she was in gentleman’s accessories, and it went on from there.’

‘So it’s my fault? When do you plan on marrying?’

‘Oh, it won’t be until next year. We have to save up a good bit first. There’ll be lots of things to buy. Though, of course, people may give us wedding presents.’

‘I’m sure they will,’ Polly said absently.

It was customary for Makepeace’s to give a present to employees leaving to get married.

There was a sliding scale: a tea service for girls who had been there for more than five years.

A dinner service after ten years. Miss Robb had been there a long time, since she left school, so if she was around the same age as Jeremy she could have done ten years.

If not, it would not be difficult to arrange for it to be the dinner service.

‘Well, congratulations,’ she said, and he looked at her so hopefully, she felt obliged to add, ‘There’ll be something for you from me, of course. I expect you’d prefer cash.’ Being relieved of the expense of Jeremy’s keep, she could afford to be generous.

When he had stammered his thanks and gone away, she stared at nothing for a while, thinking how easy life was for the Jeremys of this world.

He’d met a decent girl, courted her, would marry and probably have two or three children, work his way up through the bank to a respectable height, and retire with a gold watch and grandchildren, all according to a traditional pattern he’d never had to think about. Why couldn’t her life be like that?

Later that morning, when she returned from the lambing pens, she went to the telephone and, when Exchange answered, asked for the Cavendish Gallery in London.

Eventually a female voice with a very refined accent answered, and Polly asked when the Eric Chapel exhibition would be opening.

After a brief pause, the voice informed her that the exhibition had been cancelled, and would not now be taking place.

‘Cancelled? Why?’ Polly demanded.

‘I really couldn’t say, madam. There will an exhibition of modern ceramics instead. Would you care to be sent a leaflet about it?’

‘No, thanks,’ Polly said, and put the phone down, rather harder than was strictly necessary.

* * *

Ethel was cautiously pleased at Jeremy’s announcement that evening, until she understood that it meant he would be leaving Morland Place after the wedding.

Instead of having a daughter-in-law added to her entourage, someone she hoped to mould into a useful handmaid, she’d be having a son subtracted.

‘Why? she cried. ‘This is your home – why would you want to leave it?’

‘Amelia and I want a place of our own, Mother,’ Jeremy said. ‘Anyway, it’s not going to happen for a while yet. At least a year.’

‘There’s still no need for you to go. There’s lots of room here.’

That was the beginning. Over the following days, Ethel pointed out to Jeremy in her soft, complaining voice how unkind and selfish he was being in wanting to abandon his mother in her declining years and deprive her of his support and the potential future joys of grandmotherhood.

Jeremy reassured her over and again that it would not be happening yet, that he would not be going far away, and that she would see him as often as before.

She sighed that this could not be, since she saw him every day now, and nothing could replace the comfort of knowing she was sleeping under the same roof as her darling boy.

He wobbled alarmingly under the tender onslaught, and occasionally came close to tears, but with a few bracing looks from Polly he managed to hold firm.

It was all Polly could do to keep her temper with Ethel, especially when she began to comfort herself with the idea that Miss Robb looked a flighty sort of girl and would probably break off the engagement before it got to marriage, which reduced Jeremy to incoherence.

It was with relief that Polly received a message from the mills in Manchester to say that the linens for the Queen Mary were ready, if she cared to come and inspect them.

‘I have to go to Manchester for a few days,’ she announced to the family. She instructed John Burton to send a telegram, told Rogers to pack for her, kissed Alec goodbye and told him to be a good boy, then fled.