The Quality Street Wedding Page 8

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘Mrs Skirrow’s in quarantine!’ Doreen delivered the astonishing news as she burst into the changing room of the Caramel Cup line where her colleagues were putting on their caps, ready for the start of their shift.

  ‘How’s that?’ Winnifred stopped mid-sentence in alarm. ‘Our Mrs Skirrow? You mean Mavis?’

  ‘Yes, Mavis, Mavis Skirrow who works wrapping and packing in our workroom – she’s in mandatory quarantine with her whole family.’ Doreen squeezed past her colleagues to reach her peg and pull on her white overalls while she explained. ‘She lives on our street. One of her lads went to see his cousin out at their farm and came home a bit sickly. By teatime he was sweating buckets and talking drivel so they sent for the doctor. He said it was scarlet fever and the whole house has got three weeks quarantine. They can’t so much as go to the shop. Not that they could buy ’owt from the shop because they can’t go out to collect their wage packets, so they’ve got nothing.’

  ‘Where did you hear all this?’ Pearl was wary of believing scare stories about devastating scourges based purely on hearsay.

  ‘From Mavis hersen’. She came to the window, asked me to tell her overlooker so as they’d know she wasn’t swinging the lead, like.’ Doreen was quick to reassure the colleagues who were edging away from her, ‘Oh, she didn’t open the window, she says she’s not allowed. She just shouted through the glass. That’ll be all right, won’t it?’

  ‘We should leave her some basin meals.’ Winnifred wasn’t going to let one of their colleagues go without food for three weeks, nor her children neither. ‘Do you know if her family are doing ’owt? Or your neighbours?’

  Doreen blew out her cheeks. ‘Her only family are up at the farm and they’re under a quarantine order an’ all, but I don’t think they’re keeping to it. I saw one of their kids dropping off some bread and bits this morning when I stopped by.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all we need!’ Pearl groaned. ‘I hope you reported them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dare. It’s Stebbins lot – you know the ones who have the motorcycle and the huge dog? – I wouldn’t say boo to their goose.’

  ‘But if they’re spreading it round …’ Pearl pulled a face as though she’d smelled something unpalatable. ‘Some poor kiddy could easily catch it.’

  Doreen tried to move the conversation on from the suggestion that she inform on a well-known and difficult local family. ‘There’s always a few cases this time of year. They clear up by the Easter holidays when everyone gets a bit more fresh air.’

  ‘That’s what they said in Doncaster,’ Winnifred said ominously. ‘You heard about the outbreak they had there last year; swept through the town and killed—’

  ‘When we’re quite ready?’ Cynthia Starbeck had thrown open the doors from the production room to the cloakroom and was standing to attention.

  ‘We’re so sorry, Mrs Starbeck.’ Pearl, being some years older than Cynthia Starbeck, tended to adopt a conversational tone with her, as though she thought they were equals. ‘We had just heard the news that one of our colleagues from this line has been put into mandatory quarantine. She’s asked us to tell Reenie because—’

  ‘Irene Calder no longer runs this line.’ Mrs Starbeck didn’t give anyone the chance to ask questions. ‘We are now three minutes late for starting and this will be recorded on your timecards. Places, please.’

  ‘But Mrs Starbeck,’ Pearl insisted, ‘Mavis is in quarantine for three weeks. Shouldn’t we inform someone from the Employment Department so that they don’t dock her wages?’

  ‘Is Mavis ill?’

  ‘No, but she and her family have to stay in quarantine while her son gets over scarlet fever.’

  ‘If she is not at work she is not entitled to wages. If she is unwell herself then she can apply to the sickness club for insurance. If she is not unwell herself then she is not entitled to sickness insurance and would be well advised to come into work. Now, if you’d be so good as to start work, we are now four minutes late and I will be docking wages accordingly.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Starbeck.’ Pearl swallowed her criticisms of the manager who had the power to make pecuniary sanctions against them all and followed her colleagues to the production line.

  The line had changed since the occasion of the phantom spider sighting and subsequent tin soldier discovery. The engineers had been in to rearrange the production line equipment and to shorten the women’s workstations so that each woman was now working at far closer quarters with the next, and with far less space to comfortably move. Their wonderful experimental line, which Reenie Calder had set up to test her theory that more space meant more speed, had been transformed on Mrs Starbeck’s orders as an experiment to determine the absolute minimum space a production line could operate in, and they were the guinea pigs. The worry over an isolated case of scarlet fever was quickly forgotten in the face of this immediate threat to their working way of life.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘Mary is having a love affair by correspondence.’ Bess offered up her sister’s news to Reenie in exchange for a chocolate digestive biscuit which had only melted on one side.

  ‘I am not!’

  Bess was unconcerned by her elder sister’s protestations and said between mouthfuls of biscuit, ‘I saw the letters; they’re all from Mr Baum. I saw them when our bedroom got flooded. He says he misses her.’

  ‘He just said that he misses my cheerful face in the morning because I’m always ready to start work on time! Other people aren’t ready to start work on time.’

  Reenie, who was managing to eat a digestive biscuit with one hand, brush down her horse with the other, and carry on a conversation with her friends asked, ‘Since when have you had a cheerful face?’

  Mary scowled at Reenie. ‘I’ve always had a cheerful face.’

  Reenie ducked under Ruffian’s neck to brush his other side while Bess and Mary shuffled down the hay bale they were sitting on to give her more room. ‘What’s he been writing you letters for, then?’

  Mary was vague. ‘They’re just instructions on the work he wants me to do in the kitchens in his absence.’

  Bess was gleeful, ‘He’s sent her hundreds.’

  Reenie dropped her horse brush; this was exciting. ‘But he’s only been gone since June!’

  ‘No,’ Mary wanted to nip this whole thing in the bud before the news got all round the factory, ‘he just sends one each day.’

  Reenie raised an eyebrow. ‘One a day? Doesn’t that feel a bit keen?’

  Mary – who offered this information only because she wanted to jump to Albert’s defence – said, ‘He’s only writing so often because he’s replying to my letters.’ And then protested with even more agitation, ‘Diana told me to do it! I’m just sending him a summary of the work I’ve done each day and questions about my studies. He’s just answering questions about my studies!’

  Reenie smirked. ‘And telling you he misses your cheerful face.’

  ‘It’s not like that. He’s not like that.’

  Reenie came and sat down beside her companionably to reach for another biscuit. ‘Well, what is he like?’

  Mary thought carefully, and then said, ‘He’s just … he’s just very gentlemanly and he cares about how I’m getting on.’

  Bess said, ‘He wishes he could take her to Germany one day and show her his city because he thinks she’d like the buildings.’

  ‘There’s nothing funny about that! It’s just architecture!’

  Reenie was enjoying this conversation. ‘Is that what they’re calling it these days? Oh, but it sounds romantic. Would you really go to Germany if he asked you?’

  ‘Of course not. Going abroad sounds terrifying.’

  Reenie thought Mary would find anything and everywhere terrifying. It was a miracle she walked out of her own front door each morning. ‘What else do you two write about?’

  ‘Just work and nothing else.’

  Bess was remembering more from the fragm
ents of letters she’d seen. ‘He talks to her about the news because he wants to reassure her he’s not in as much danger as she worries he is.’

  ‘Is he in danger?’

  ‘Of course he’s in danger!’ For once Mary wasn’t worrying unnecessarily. ‘He’s a Jewish man living in Germany! He gets stopped by the police twice a week!’

  This put a different complexion on things altogether and Reenie was now very concerned, ‘What do the police want with him? What’s he done?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Mary’s eyes welled up a little with anger at the thought of what he was put through by the police, and by local officials, and by anyone else with a little bit of power to wield. ‘They’ve never got a reason. They do it to anyone they think is Jewish and sometimes they take him to the police station and make him sit there for hours while they “check his papers” and he has to miss a day off work.’

  ‘That’s awful,’ Reenie said, ‘he should definitely come back to England. Is he still coming back?’

  ‘We don’t know.’ Mary kicked at her own heel. ‘He’s got to get permission to come indefinitely and they only gave him a three-month permit last time, and they’ve threatened to stop those. And they won’t let him bring his sister and his children. Mackintosh’s are trying to get him an indefinite permit, and Sir Harold has offered to pay their bond himself, but the Home Office keep telling him his papers are wrong.’ Mary didn’t dare tell them the latest news – the news which had arrived by airmail on Friday; anything could put the mockers on it and she didn’t want to take the risk.

  Reenie put her arm through Mary’s. ‘When he does come back, do you think he’ll ask you to walk out with him?’

  ‘Of course not, he’s my manager!’

  ‘He’s not really, though, is he? Amy Wilkes is your manager, he’s just a colleague.’

  Bess piped up, ‘He says he’s counting the days until they can be together again.’

  Reenie grinned when she heard this revelation. ‘I honestly think he’s sweet on you. And he’s a nice man and ever so handsome. Are you sweet on him?’

  Bess said, ‘She is. She’s always talking about him.’

  ‘I am not!’

  Reenie sighed at the romance of it all. ‘Think of all the places he could take you! I bet he’d want to take you abroad for your honeymoon if you got married. Where do you think you’d ask to go?’

  Bess squeaked, ‘Oh, take me! I’ve never been abroad.’

  Mary pursed her lips, got up, and brushed the hay off her skirt. ‘I don’t want to talk about this any more.’ She said it decisively, but in her heart of hearts she really did want to talk about it. She wanted to pour her worries out to her friend and tell her all her fears and her frail hopes. She wanted to tell her how her heart fluttered in her chest every time a letter arrived from Albert, and how terrified she was at the thought that he would come back soon. Because much though she loved his letters, and much though she wished they could be together, she was terrified of this great unknown. She didn’t want to be taken places, or to go abroad for a honeymoon because she feared the unknown. As long as Albert was at a distance, their love affair was just the size she could manage. Truth be told, he had said more in his letters to her than Bess knew about and she had said more to him. When he came back to England it would be impossible to carry on as they had before he had left, and this made a hard lump stick in her throat.

  Mary had kept telling herself that it would be a long time yet before he could return and so for the moment she was safe to savour their correspondence – but the nagging worry had remained. There was so much she didn’t know about the world and the things she did know she feared: she feared what would happen if he stayed in Germany, and she feared what would happen if he returned.

  As time had gone by Albert had revealed more and more of the troubles he and his family were facing at home in Germany, and Mary could not conceal her outrage at the injustice of it. After she’d expressed that the line had been crossed and an intimacy crept into their correspondence which only grew with each delivery of the post. Mary implored him to be careful, not to take risks, not to anger the officials by sticking up for himself or telling them what he thought of their regime. He was too vulnerable, and there was no safety net.

  Their correspondence was daily, but not chronological. As their letters flew back and forth across the channel, they often overlapped and jumped ahead of each other, leading to all kinds of confusion and anticipation. They didn’t mind; for Albert’s part he couldn’t believe that a girl in another country, who had never met his children, could be ready to fight like a tiger to save them, and Mary couldn’t believe there was anyone in all the world who could cause her so much worry and then, with a word, smooth it all away.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘I need you to sign an affidavit.’ Amy Wilkes was drinking her second cup of tea that morning and, judging by the stack of freshly typed correspondence ready for the post, she had been at her desk for two hours longer than anyone else in the office building. ‘It’s not here; the Mackintosh’s solicitor is drawing it up so you’ll need to go over to his chambers with Mr Baum. I’ve sent for a car to take you both there – there’s no time for you to be waiting at bus stops when I’ve got work for you to do here.’

  Diana gave away only a glimmer of surprise ‘Mr Baum? Mr Albert Baum?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Baum. Head Confectioner, Mr Baum.’

  ‘But he’s in Germany, isn’t he?’

  ‘No, he’s behind you.’

  Diana’s head whipped round and she saw a pair of bashful cocoa-coloured eyes look up. Albert Baum had been sitting in a chair behind the door with a crumpled raincoat over his knee. ‘Mr Baum,’ Diana recovered her composure after her initial surprise. ‘I’m sorry, I hadn’t realised you were here. Does Mary know …?’ Diana looked from Albert to her manager.

  ‘Mary?’ Amy Wilkes frowned and took off her tortoiseshell spectacles, trying to place the name. ‘She’s the apprentice confectioner?’

  Diana paused very slightly before she answered, ‘Yes. She’s been holding the fort for Mr Baum.’ And then pointedly to the recent arrival, ‘She’ll be very anxious to know that you’ve returned safely.’

  ‘Well, he’s not safe yet, that’s why you need to sign the affidavit. And on that note, you’ll find the car waiting outside.’

  Diana was a little suspicious of this unannounced arrival of her German colleague. She had always believed that he was a good man and that he had a genuine affection for Mary; indeed, this had been part of her reason for encouraging a long-distance courtship by arranging weekly telephone calls for them and daily letters under the guise of work-related arrangements. But now here he was and he hadn’t gone straight to find Mary to tell her that he had arrived. The girl was suffering an agony of worry and waiting and he was riding in a chauffeur-driven car to see a solicitor. But Diana said nothing. It was not her business.

  ‘I will tell her very soon.’ Albert Baum was shifting awkwardly in the cream leather seats of the Mackintosh’s limousine, clearly he felt conflicted about his situation.

  ‘Tell who about what?’ Diana feigned disinterest well; she was so often disinterested that it came naturally to her.

  ‘We both know very well. I want to bring her good news, not more worry.’

  They sat in an uncomfortable silence until the car turned off Silver Street and glided up to the door of Equitable Chambers. The ornamented building was as intimidating as the luxurious car; high Edwardian splendour in the fussiest imitation of Renaissance Florentine grandeur. It was not a place which Diana could warm to, but she supposed it had just the right amount of arrogance to deal a blow to the Home Office bureaucrats who were taking them round and round in circles with their applications for permits for more staff.

  The polished brass plate on the door gleamed and the name Barstow, Midgley & Lord had a quality which was both worn down through long establishment and consequent long cleaning, and a boldness which made it impossibl
e to misread. The plate appeared to say ‘we have always been here, but that does not mean we have ever been ignored’.

  Diana attempted to swallow her dislike of solicitors and all things legalese long enough to follow Mr Baum and the solicitor’s clerk up to the hallowed hole of Mr Midgley himself.

  ‘Ah, Herr Baum I presume?’ He extended his fat-fingered hand to shake and gave it a little twist as he did so. Diana noticed, but Mr Baum did not.

  ‘I hope that you will forgive the short notice of my arrival …’

  ‘There is nothing to forgive. We are at the disposal of our clients and Sir Harold is a client of longstanding. He explained your unusual circumstances; so was your errand successful, Herr Baum?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, it was. My colleagues at Mackintosh’s have been more than generous in their practical assistance. I travelled with my colleague Mr Johns through the Netherlands and smuggled them out in his luggage rather than my own.’ Albert reached into his jacket and pulled out a roll of cloth which he handed over to the solicitor.

  Mr Midgley unrolled the fabric, glanced at what it contained, and then stepped aside to allow his clerk to take a seat at his desk and immediately begin writing out an inventory of its contents for a detailed receipt. Diana’s eyebrow rose slightly at the sight of rubies red as blood, gleaming gold rings set with sparkling sapphires, solidly ornate silver bangles, and trinkets which were alien to her in their shape but not in their value. She watched and she listened.

  ‘I am sorry, where are my manners?’ Albert recollected himself now that the burden of his concealed treasure had been passed to safe hands. ‘Mr Midgley, this is Diana Moore of the Mackintosh’s Employment Department. She has kindly come to sign the affidavit for the Home Office to confirm my offer of permanent employment, and the fact that I alone am qualified to undertake the work they have for me.’

  ‘Miss Moore, a pleasure.’ Mr Midgley shook her hand with that same slight twist: a thumb between two of her knuckles. This perhaps solved the mystery of why one of the partners in the firm was dealing with this matter personally – granted the Mackintosh family were important clients, but Baum was not a Mackintosh. This was perhaps a personal favour; Diana read the newspapers, she knew that Adolf Hitler had inexplicably declared Freemasonry to be one of his many enemies. A Yorkshire Freemason might be more sympathetic than the civil servants in the Home Office, but it didn’t explain the jewels; surely Mr Baum wasn’t expected to pay in gold for his papers? And even if he were, that amount would far exceed any fees they could bill him for.