Greywell Villa in Stormont Street, Clapham, was immaculately decorated without and within. Its interior was lofty and light from long windows which had pretty lace pulled into their corners and much of its furniture, which was of the same period as the house, was proudly stamped ‘Gillow’. Plainly Greywell was the home of a professional man who had secured a steady flow of fees over a long period. Its shrubberies burgeoned and its small lawns invited no boots to indent their surface. Controlled roses and clematis, pyracantha and vitis softened its red-brick walls, and the only way that herbaceous plants in the borders lost their heads was by dead-head pruners, as flowers for the house were delivered twice a week.
It was in Greywell, set in the desirable area of Lavender Hill, that Emily and Martin had spent more than twenty years of married life with few unpleasantnesses. Only two of real seriousness: the first was when Otis had got it into her head that she wished to go to college and read for a teaching degree; the second, also brought about by Otis of course, was when she had been to college and wished to put into practice what she had learned.
There were times when Emily Hewetson felt that the lot of a mother with a headstrong daughter who had an indulgent father was almost too much to bear.
‘Had I not been a good mother, Max, then her behaviour would at the least be understandable.’
‘Em, my dear, I think that you have done marvellously. It is probably in her nature, your excellent upbringing of Otis can have nothing to do with it.’
‘She has made some very peculiar acquaintances and picked up some strange notions since she was at Stockwell.’ Emily gazed disdainfully at her forkful of salad, ‘One thing I will say, I was against her going in the first place.’ No names no pack-drill, her expression said. ‘I do not know how Inspector Moth managed it, but his daughter was persuaded from taking up her college place… and now look at her, married to a most likeable army officer. A musician, too; such a civilized and sociable way of soldiering.’
‘You attended the wedding then?’
‘Extremely civil of the man. He had us seated with some of the Clermont members of the family. It was quite a small affair, but almost quality. Quite lavish – faultless in fact. I must admit that I was surprised at the taste shown. I should have wanted something a touch more striking in a gown for Otis, but she was a very dainty kind of a bride. Otis could carry off something far more elaborate. Quite expensive though.’
‘You enjoyed it then, Em?’
‘I did, I did. A strange mix of the simple and the lavish. I found it interesting; as I observed to Martin, quite as one might have expected from such a strange mix as the bride’s parents were. The groom had practically no one except his fellow officers.’
‘Another slice of beef, Hew?’ asked Martin Hewetson, keeping his head below the parapet.
‘Is that not absolutely typical of Martin? Here I am with my nerves in shreds for our daughter, and he continues slicing beef.’
‘We may as well be replete if we are to worry, my dear.’
Emily Hewetson chewed the tender fillet as though it was a poorly cooked servant’s cut.
‘You must not fret because the young Moth girl beat Otis down the aisle, Em.’
‘Oh Max, how you do reduce everything. I am not at all fretting that she reached the age of twenty and no young man has seriously courted her. I would not dare fret or I should be soon informed that we mothers turn romance into a marriage market. Market! What a term. I know that these are modern times and that young women are receiving education, and wish to spend more time outside the home than was thought proper in my young days, but the fact remains that marriage, home and family are central to a woman’s life. The fact also remains that all mothers feel more at ease in their minds when a daughter is settled.’
She had insisted that Martin bring Max home for lunch so that they might decide how best to tackle the problem of Otis’s latest decision. Emily had honestly believed that, once the Stockwell College business was over and it was out of Otis’s system and the girls dispersed, Otis would return home and settle down.
‘I really did expect that you would be more co-operative, Max. Martin has always been far too indulgent, and she has gone beyond an age when I can say anything that she will heed.’
‘Then you may be sure that she will take not the slightest notice of me, Em.’ Which was not strictly true for, of the three of them, it was to her Uncle Hewey’s views that Otis Hewetson was most likely to listen. Max Hewetson, however, involved as he might be in Greywell, did not wish to become embroiled in the discussion that had been going on in his brother’s household recently. ‘Might I have some more of that beef, Martin?’
Emily breathed in heavily, raising by two inches the flounces which emphasized her bosom.
The effect of this was lost in the rattle and rustle caused by Otis rushing into the dining-room and sitting at table still wearing her hat.
‘I am sorry to be late. But the buses are so full at present. There are soldiers everywhere.’
‘Otis, if you like to remove your hat before you eat, and not behave as though you were a visitor to your home, I should feel better able to digest my food.’ Had the men not been present, Emily might have suggested that her daughter might like to hold herself together with a proper corset, but she knew that that battle was as good as lost. She had the feeling too that this new battle, in which she had hoped to enlist the aid of Max, was about to be lost also.
‘No time, Ma. I have to go out again almost at once.’
‘Otis, no! You have not settled for a single minute since you left college. I believe that you are avoiding us.’
‘Of course I am not, Ma. Why on earth should I do that?’
‘You know very well. I asked Max here hoping that you might listen to sense.’
‘Now Em, don’t you go bringing me into it.’
Emily Hewetson looked as though she felt like hitting the traitor.
‘Right, Uncle Hewey. And don’t go bringing me into it either. You have had your say, Ma. You have made it very clear that you do not approve of my taking a teaching post in Islington.’
‘Islington! Do you hear that, Max?’
‘And Pa has had his say – he would prefer that I teach in a pleasant, fee-paying girls’ school. And now Uncle Hewey has had his say, which is that he does not want to be brought into it.’
She helped herself to a tomato and beetroot and ate quickly.
‘And you are determined to leave us and go off to live in some squalid little rented rooms?’
Otis put down her knife and fork and rested her hands in her lap and turned to her mother in an attitude of conciliation. ‘I have no intention of leaving you and Pa,’ she said gently. ‘I shall come here frequently I hope. I should like to keep my room and have some of my things here as I did whilst I was at Stockwell. But I do want to live as part of the community whose children I shall be teaching.’
‘I really do not know how this has all come about.’ Emily closed her eyes and gave herself a shuddering shake. ‘You have been obstinate about my going to inspect these rooms, and I did believe that you would not go so far. Now, however, I insist that your father takes a hand. Martin, it is up to you.’
‘Uncle Hewey came yesterday. You approve, don’t you, Uncle Hewey?’
Emily Hewetson burnt a look at the viper who had been calmly eating her roast beef at her own lunch table. ‘You have been there? And you said nothing? Max!’ She was deeply hurt and Max would suffer for it later.
Looking faintly uncomfortable, but putting a face on it, Max Hewetson said, ‘I kept my word to Otis that I would not. Really, Martin,’ (though his eyes were fixed upon Emily) ‘the rooms are perfectly clean and respectable. There are no trees in the streets and no gardens, I will give you that, but it is not at all badly kept up. She might have done very much worse.’ Now he looked at Otis who stared innocently back at him. ‘It will be very convenient for her living over a little restaurant. I sampled the food myself, it was excellent, I assure you.’
‘Over a restaurant! Martin, you must do something.’
‘Very well, Em, I will go and inspect the rooms.’
At which Otis smiled inwardly. As with her Uncle Hewey, so she had always been able to twist her pa around her little finger. Her rooms were secure.
Martin Hewetson very much disliked finding himself in the situation where his two women were in disagreement. He had never yet found a satisfactory way of dealing with it. What tended to happen was that, unless forced to do so, he offered no comment until he was alone with each of them, then he would sympathize with each argument, and at the same time would diplomatically try to ease in a bit of the opposing viewpoint.
‘Neither I nor your father will be able to rest easy in our beds whilst you are living in the midst of those people.’
Otis opened her mouth to defend ‘those people’, but her father spoke first. ‘Em, my dear. I think that we have to admit defeat on this. We have lost the case. And we really ought to give Otis credit for her common sense and trust her.’
But Emily was not in a mood to concede anything.
Otis folded her napkin and had arisen before Max Hewetson could give assistance. ‘Yes, Pa, I am afraid that you have lost the case. No matter what. All that I need is my letter of confirmation.’ It was not often that Otis’s expression was so determined but, when it was, it was easy to see how much of her mother’s forceful character she had inherited. ‘Not that I admit that there was any case to answer. I am now a trained teacher and I believe that I shall be a very good one. Where are trained teachers most needed? We are needed where the children are poorest and most deprived. Now I ask you, Uncle Hewey, what use are the bad teachers to those children? And if I am to teach them, then I must know about them. Can you imagine how impossible that would be if I were to live here and only visit on a daily basis? How patronizing that would be: Miss Lavender Hill condescending to teach London’s poor children.’
Whatever retort Emily Hewetson might have made was interrupted by one of the maids bringing the midday post to the master. This he sorted, handing one to Otis. ‘Shouldn’t you say that this was the one you have been waiting for?’ With the name and address facing, he handed Otis a long envelope.
‘I have been accepted! Oh! I cannot believe it.’
Otis felt that having stopped breathing she would never start again. ‘Look, Ma. Look, Uncle Hew. “Miss Otis Hewetson BA.” There! BA. Did you ever think that you would see that, Pa?’
‘No, my dear, I never did. Well perhaps in this last year…’ and he thought how, if she had been a son, she would now have been coming into the practice.
Max Hewetson, using a suitably avuncular voice, told her that she had been a very clever girl and that he intended buying her a bracelet inscribed with her name and qualification. He thought how fast things were changing and how difficult life would be for a man married to one of these new women.
London’s poor! Oh, how Emily Hewetson ached to arrange a wedding such as their friends had not seen in twenty years.