Annie Groves - Women on the Home Front - Family Saga 4-Book Collection

Her mother was a wonderful cook, and even though they were C of E, not Catholic, they always had fish on Fridays. Fish pie with lovely creamy mash, parsley sauce and peas was one of Tilly’s favourite meals. Now, looking at her mother, her shiny almost black curls – which Tilly had inherited from her, along with her sea-green eyes and pale Celtic skin – caught back in a neat bun, a faint flush warming her skin, Tilly felt the urge to protest that she didn’t want them to have any lodgers, and that she had been looking forward to it just being the two of them after the long years of her mother nursing her in-laws.

But before she could do so her mother told her gently, as though she knew what she was feeling, ‘We have to, Tilly, love. Bills don’t pay themselves, you know, and without your granddad’s pension coming in, I’d have to go back to cleaning or taking in washing, and I reckon that I’d be better taking in lodgers than doing that.’

‘But it will mean you looking after them, Mum, just like you did with Gran and Granddad.’

Olive shook her head, dislodging a small curl from her bun, which she tucked back behind her ear. At thirty-five, her figure as neat as it had been the day she’d met Tilly’s father, she was glad that Tilly had inherited her own looks from the Irish side of her family, and her own trim figure with them. Though with that kind of beauty, Olive would never want Tilly to use her looks in the cheap kind of way that some young women did. A pretty face could bring trouble on a girl who didn’t stick to society’s rules. Even here, on respectable Article Row, there had been daughters who had been married with unseemly haste, and babies born ‘at seven months’ whilst weighing as much as any full-term infant. Not that Olive was in any hurry to see Tilly married. Her own experience as a young wife, a young mother and then a young widow meant she felt it was more important right now that Tilly was equipped with the means of earning her own living because you never knew what the future might hold. Of course, Olive would never share those views with anyone else. Good mothers were expected to want good marriages for their daughters, not financial independence.

‘No, what I’m thinking, Tilly, is advertising only for respectable female lodgers, young women who will keep their rooms tidy and look after them.’

‘But we’ve only got two spare bedrooms.’

‘And an extra bathroom – don’t forget about that. I know I said at the time that I couldn’t see why your grandfather wouldn’t have his bed moved downstairs to the front parlour, which would have been much easier for me, but now I think having that will help us to get the right kind of young women wanting those attic rooms.’

Olive went over to her daughter, smoothing her curls back off her face and dropping a kiss on her forehead as she told her, ‘You’ll see, it will all work out for the best.’

‘But what if there’s a war, Mum, and the lodgers and us get evacuated?’

Olive’s expression firmed. ‘No one’s going to evacuate me from this house, Tilly, I can tell you that, and we don’t know yet that there will be a war.’

‘But what if there is?’ Tilly persisted. ‘I’m not a child any more, Mum. I read the papers and listen to the news. There’s all that blackout material you bought for us to cover the windows with, and our gas masks. No one’s said anything about us handing them back, have they? And boys are still having to do their military training. Clara in the office said only tonight that her Harry is going to be starting his soon. I don’t want you worrying about things and not telling me, Mum. I want to share them with you.’

Olive smiled both sadly and proudly, as she stroked the silky darkness of her daughter’s hair.

‘You’re right,’ she agreed. ‘You aren’t a little girl, you’re a young woman, Tilly, and if there’s to be a war, then we’ll deal with whatever it brings us together.’

They smiled at one another, and then Olive added briskly, ‘Meanwhile, as soon as we’ve finished eating and washed up, you and me are going to sit down and write out an advertisement to let the attic rooms. I was thinking that if you could get permission to type it on your typewriter at work then it would look properly businesslike and attract the right kind of lodger. Now eat your fish pie before it goes cold.’

Later that evening, in her bedroom, cold-creaming her face before she went to bed, Olive paused. There would be those Olive knew who would disapprove of her plans and even be opposed to them. A small tremble, part apprehension and part determination, ran through her body. Her father-in-law had been fond of boasting that he had got this house at a good price because of its number – thirteen. Thirteen was lucky for some, he had often said, giving a wink as he added, ‘Especially for those who have the good sense to make their own luck.’

Now with the respectable silence of the Row settling round its inhabitants, Olive hoped desperately that it would be lucky for her as well in her new venture. Because if it wasn’t then she would face having to sell the house, and she and Tilly would have to take a step down in the world.

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