No use speaking to her mother about such things. The war itself was of no interest to her, only the aftermath of her bereavement.
There was an attractive neo-Gothic monument to the South African War in Duncombe Place, near the Theatre Royal. Gwendolen passed it often. How far in the past the Boer War seemed—the stuff of dreary history books now—a dried-up beetle on a pin compared to the raw, raging behemoth of Gwendolen’s own war. (She was possessive of it, it had changed everything.) Impossible to believe that one day it, too, would be the forgotten past, remembered only in indifferent stone.
At least, she thought, the new Royal Artillery memorial had the guts to show a dead soldier. For that, if nothing else, she gave it respect. She refused to worship at these shrines to the dead and yet Gwendolen’s heart was moved by the sight of a small posy of withered flowers that had been laid on the memorial. A faded note declared simply For Daddy. What a wicked, wicked world it was that had allowed such a war.
* * *
—
Her destination beckoned, the “Cock o’ the North” finally exorcized from her brain. She paused for a moment on the pavement to appreciate the splendid exterior of Liberty’s new Tudor-style building and then experienced a quiet thrill when she enquired of the doorman, “Ladies’ Fashions?” and was silently directed towards the lift. Was he mute?, she wondered. Not a very handy thing in a doorman. She had known men to have their throats destroyed by gas.
She ignored the lift and sped up the magnificent staircase. The war was vanquished now. Here was all beauty.
* * *
—
Gwendolen was beginning to regret that she had not gone shopping for at least one decent outfit before leaving for London. It wasn’t as if there weren’t any dress shops in York. She was embarrassed by how shabbily provincial she must seem in the eyes of the assistant in Liberty’s who swooped on her like a hawk, sensing prey.
The assistant was only too well acquainted with thieves and knew that they prowled the shop floor in good clothes in order to blend in with the better class of customers who shopped there. Gwendolen sensed her calculating that someone as pitifully dressed as madam must be in possession of a new husband or a sudden windfall, rather than being intent on shoplifting. “Of course,” the assistant concluded, “let me see what I can do for you.” Was madam looking for something in particular?
“Well,” Gwendolen replied, “I think I’m looking for everything.” What a gift she was to commerce!
Where did this new-found wealth come from? you ask. A few days after her mother’s funeral, Gwendolen had visited the family solicitor, a Mr. Jenkinson, whose offices were in Stonegate, opposite the old wireworks—now a wool shop. “Like swords into ploughshares,” she said to Mr. Jenkinson, who welcomed her warmly, offering tea “or a small glass of port?” She declined both.
It was, as she suspected, a case of a few signatures and some small paperwork. No hidden secrets, no coins that reappeared like magic. Gwendolen couldn’t help but give voice to a lament over the loss (theft!) of everything her father had strived to build, and Mr. Jenkinson said, “Well, then perhaps, Miss Kelling, this would be a good time to access the trust.”
Trust?
“The trust your father put in place. I have been curious why you have left it on deposit for so long.”
Trust? Prepare to be surprised!
He explained it patiently, as to a child. Her father had set up a discretionary trust for his children. After his death, they were each to inherit an equal amount on reaching the age of twenty-one. Five thousand pounds.
Five thousand pounds?
“Each.”
Each?
He frowned at her. “You really didn’t know? Your mother didn’t tell you? I did write letters to you.”
Mother knew? She had stolen (there was no other word for it) letters addressed to Gwendolen?
“Naturally. She wasn’t able to touch it, but she knew of its existence. And, of course,” the solicitor continued, “the way the trust is set up, on the death of one, the money is shared between the others. Harry and Dickie died long before their twenty-first birthdays (my sincere condolences, by the way, Miss Kelling), so their share remained intact. When Harry died his share was inherited by you and Dickie, and then when Dickie died you inherited his share. So you have, in total, fifteen thousand pounds.”
Fifteen thousand pounds?
“Your father was making a great deal of money before his death.”
Fifteen thousand pounds? Mother knew that there were fifteen thousand pounds sitting in a bank somewhere—no, not “somewhere,” in a deposit account in the Yorkshire Penny Bank in Coney Street, to be exact. Had their father been prescient? Did he know that his foolish wife couldn’t be counted on with even a farthing, let alone his entire estate?
“I do wonder why your mother said nothing,” Mr. Jenkinson said.
“Yes, I wonder,” Gwendolen said, but in fact she knew. Gwendolen with money would be independent. Gwendolen with money—despite her promise to her father—might abandon her mother and strike out to live life on her own terms. Gwendolen with money would not be shackled to her mother by frugality. Gwendolen with money would be free. Mother preferred to live in woefully reduced circumstances than risk losing her slave companion.
“And the house, if I sell the house?”
“I would expect it to sell for three thousand pounds at the very least. It’s a very fine house.”
“And there are fifteen thousand pounds in the bank?” (In the next street!) “Are you sure?”
“Plus interest accrued, of course.”
“If you don’t mind, Mr. Jenkinson, I think I will have that port now.”
* * *
—
She further celebrated by walking the short distance to Terry’s restaurant in St. Helen’s Square and lunching in solitary splendour—feasting on oxtail soup, chicken in a white sauce, and sherry trifle. She was a woman of substance now. From riches to rags to riches again. She was almost ashamed at how happy it made her.
She wished to be neither frugal nor profligate, but she would like to make her money work. She would reinvest it in something solid, or perhaps in another manufacturing venture, not a wireworks. Or a little shop. In London she had passed several enterprises owned by women. There was a hat shop called Audrey’s, a dress shop called Barbara’s, a florist called Jean’s. She could set up Gwendolen’s, she thought, in York, or Harrogate, although for the life of her she couldn’t think of anything she would want to sell. The one thing that it would not be would be dreary. The time of dreariness was over.
* * *
—
Gwendolen left Liberty’s and joined the crowds of shoppers. She had purchased a fine new wardrobe in Ladies’ Fashions but she was still sporting her old librarian tweed and wool. Her purchases were to be boxed up and delivered this afternoon to the Warrender, leaving her free to ramble along Regent Street with no encumbrance apart from her handbag. It, too, was her old one—shabby and well used.
She had missed luncheon at the Warrender, which was no great loss as it was a cold collation of sandwiches that the Distressed fell on like wolves in an effort to secure the better ones—egg and cress, boiled ham—leaving the fish-paste ones as poor consolation prizes for latecomers.
Further along Regent Street, she passed a man who was playing the cornet—“busking”—on the pavement outside Hamley’s. He was wearing impenetrable dark glasses and propped against his case was a sign that said simply “War blind.” He was no amateur—he was wonderfully talented, in fact, quite up to orchestra standard. The instrument’s case, upturned in front of him like a begging bowl, contained only a paltry handful of halfpennies.