Annie Groves - Hettie of Hope Street

‘Then why are you crying?’

Dabbing her eyes with her lace-edged handkerchief, Ellie laughed. ‘I’m crying, my love, because you look so beautiful.’

‘Indeed she does, madam,’ the sales assistant agreed eagerly. ‘And if I may suggest, a nice pair of the new shoes we’ve just had in will set off the dress a treat – silver, with the new heel. Oh, and perhaps just a small bow for her hair?’

‘We’ll just take the dress for now,’ Hettie heard Ellie break into the sales assistant’s suggestions. ‘And we shall think about the shoes. Hettie, my love, go and get changed back into your own clothes.’

Later, with the dress paid for and swathed in layers of tissue paper, the three women left the shop and Connie announced, ‘Well, I don’t know about you two but I am parched.’

They found a small tea shop a short distance away from Bon Marche where Hettie, despite claiming she was far too excited to eat, managed to speedily dispose of several delicate sandwiches, a piece of slab cake and two fancies. Ellie, on the other hand, merely sipped at her tea, smiling at Hettie who thanked her over and over again for her dress.

‘When you look back on this time of your life, Hettie, I want all of your memories to be happy ones.’

‘Oh they will be, Mam. In fact, I am so happy right now I could burst.’

‘That isn’t happiness, Hettie, it’s too much cake!’ Connie teased her, and although Ellie joined in their laughter she had to place her hand against the side of her stomach to quell the discomfort nagging at her.

She was just tired, she assured herself, that was all. Connie had been right to say that she was worrying unnecessarily, and even if she had seen Iris what more could her friend have done than echo Connie’s reassurance? Besides, she wouldn’t have wanted to have missed this special time with Hettie. She had no regrets on that score. No, not even about the shocking expense of Hettie’s dress. For all that she could be wilful and tempestuous at times, Hettie had never been greedy or asked for anything.

When they had finished their tea, she would take Hettie back to Bon Marche and get her those shoes the sales assistant had suggested, Ellie decided, and perhaps she might even be able to buy some pretty little surprises to hide in Hettie’s trunk as well.

To Hettie’s delight, instead of returning to Preston when she had originally planned, Ellie decided she would spend a couple more days in Liverpool. It was arranged that Gideon would drive over to pick her up on Saturday, so that she would have time to pack Hettie’s trunk and have it despatched to her.

‘P’raps now that you are staying longer you will be able to see Iris after all, Ellie,’ Connie suggested as they were clearing the breakfast things one morning.

Ellie dipped her head so that Connie wouldn’t see her face. She didn’t want her sister to guess how much her own forebodings still troubled her, and how much she wished she had been able to see Iris. The last thing she wanted was to be reminded of her own fears. Trying to ignore them she said as lightly as she could, ‘No, she will already have left Liverpool by now, but it doesn’t matter. I have been feeling much better.’

Much better but still not entirely ‘well’.

‘These young buggers come here and think they know everything. They don’t know how to treat a flying machine with proper respect, that they don’t.’

John smiled as he listened to Jim Ryley, his mechanic, grumbling about their latest intake of pupils. ‘They’re eager and enthusiastic, Jim.’

‘Aye, and some of them are downright reckless. That lanky red-headed lad for one. You want to watch him, John. He’s a right wild ‘un, and a troublemaker.’

John’s smile turned into a frown. It was true that Alan Simms was inclined to be reckless and overconfident. When John had taken him up for a lesson earlier in the week he had tried to ignore John’s instructions and wanted to loop the loop. As John had pointed out to him then, the skies were not a forgiving place in which to make an error of judgement or skill.

‘Still, he’ll be on his way soon and we’ll have the next lot coming in. How many will there be this time?’

‘Not as many as I’d like,’ John admitted.

It was a perfect day for flying, with a light wind and a clear sky, and if it wasn’t for the fact that the small problem which had caused the prop to stutter so badly yesterday meant he was grounded until he could fix it, John would have been up there enjoying it. Not that, for once, his thoughts were entirely on flying.

He picked up the letter he had received earlier in the week and re-read it. It was from a friend, a fellow flyer he had met during the war, their mutual love of flying machines giving them a shared passion which had transcended their social differences and given rise to an unlikely friendship between John, with his working class background, and Alfred, who was a member of the aristocracy. It was Alfred and not John who had initiated the friendship, brushing aside John’s awkward protests and objections about their social differences.

Alfred had written that he intended to escort his sister to Liverpool where she was boarding a liner to travel to New York this coming weekend, and they would be staying at the Adelphi hotel for a few days prior to her departure.

‘Thing is, old chap, I thought that maybe we could get together. Fact is, there’s a small business matter I’d like to discuss with you. Must say I envy you – your flying, I mean. Unfortunately, I’m grounded now. Responsibilities and all that. Still, mustn’t grumble, I suppose.’

Alfred always looked on the bright side of life – it was one of the things John admired about him – but maybe it was easy to be optimistic when you didn’t have to worry constantly about making ends meet. Alfred was, after all, an earl, whilst he was merely an ordinary working man. No, he was even less than that, John acknowledged as he looked round the rundown and shabby cottage that was his home. No self-respecting working man would live somewhere like this.

The cottage had an earth floor over which stone slabs had been laid, the result being that, when it rained, water seeped up over them and even froze when the temperature dropped sharply.

But he had slowly improved the conditions. When he had bought the property a standpipe outside had provided water for both the cottage and the livestock, but John now had water piped into the cottage itself. The outside lavvy had been little better than a latrine and a health hazard until he had built his own cesspit to accommodate not just his own needs but those of the men who came to him to learn how to fly. Indeed, their quarters were equipped with modern if basic bathrooms and sanitaryware, thanks to the generosity of his brother-in-law, Gideon. Since the cottage did not have its own bathroom it was simpler for him to use the pupils’ facilities rather than to struggle with the tin bath that hung in the washhouse.

One day, of course, he would find the time and money to install that range Ellie was always cajoling him to buy, and then he would be able to have the luxury of hot water, as well as hot food. One day…Maybe…If the business ever made him any profit.

‘Put up your fees, John,’ Gideon had advised him. But he knew if he did that then those young men who, like him, were captivated and driven by the lure of flight, would not be able to afford them. The truth was that at the moment he earned more by taking aerial photographs for those government bodies that required them than he did from giving flying lessons.

Travelling to Liverpool would mean leaving Jim on his own to sort out the problem with the prop and cancelling some of the lessons. It would also mean struggling to wash and iron one of his few remaining decent shirts, because Jenny Black, the kind-hearted soul from the village who had taken it upon herself to ‘look after him’, couldn’t be trusted not to scorch them, as he already knew to his cost. And then he would have to dig deep into his pockets to find the means to travel to Liverpool at all.