Lovers Meeting by Irene Carr Page A

out to earn and earning was vital. Dorothy’s small pension could not keep the two of them and their little savings were being eroded daily. And now the landlord had put up the rent. Dorothy knew nothing of these problems.
    ‘That’s right, love, you get a breath o’ fresh air,’ she would murmur vaguely when Josie told her she had to go out for a while. ‘A young gal like you shouldn’t have to be cooped up wi’ an old woman like me all day long.’ Then Josie would go to collect or deliver the washing she did to help make ends meet, or hurry down to the Red Lion to work through till eleven at night, finishing by scrubbing out the bar. She could not take a full-time job or one that was any distance away from the little house because Dorothy had to be cared for.
    Then when Josie returned home and settled the old woman down to sleep, Dorothy would ask, ‘Did you enjoy yourself, love?’
    And Josie would reply, ‘I had a lovely time.’
    Sleepily: ‘That’s good. You’re like a daughter to me.’
    Josie kept the job. She learned to run a bar, spot the troublemakers and deal with drunks. She learned so well that Jerry asked her to work full time, but she had to tell him that was out of the question, and why: ‘I have to look after my mother-in-law.’
    He rumbled, ‘You’re a good gal.’ And from then on there was an extra shilling in her pay.
    Josie worked unceasingly all through that spring and into the summer. It was in June that she went into Dorothy Miller’s room in the morning to find her still and cold. She had died peacefully and quietly in the night.
    The funeral swallowed the small insurance money that was paid out – Josie found the insurance book in a box of papers and old photographs. There was one photograph of Bob but she put it in the hands of the old woman where she lay in her coffin. That was a part of her life that was behind her now.
    Josie was determined to quit the house as soon as she could because it held no happy memories for her. She wanted to go back into service, where she would live in, and it was a life she had been raised in, that she knew. She spent some of her small savings on two new dresses. She would need new shoes soon, too, but she decided they would have to wait.
    ‘I’m sorry. We don’t require anyone at this time.’ The Urquharts were travelling on the Continent and their new butler – Merridew had retired – did not know Josie. But Mrs Stritch did and she was still housekeeper, sitting at his side as he interviewed her. He sent her away with the suggestion, ‘You might try the Coveneys.’ But the Coveneys did not need staff either.
    Josie remembered Albert Harvey and went to one of his hotels to try to get in touch with him, only to be told that he was in America on business and would not be returning for some months. She went on searching for a ‘place’, walking from one large town house to another, while her little savings shrank. They had almost disappeared when the Smurthwaites took her on.
    Mrs Smurthwaite, overweight and overbearing, warned Josie, ‘You won’t be able to laze about here like in those big houses, Mrs Miller.’ Josie was using the name she had taken at Dorothy Miller’s behest. It was the name the Urquharts used on the reference they gave her which she had produced for Mrs Smurthwaite. That lady now went on, ‘You’ll have to pull your weight here. My late husband always insisted on that: “Servants have to pull their weight,” he said.’ Josie learned that Mrs Smurthwaite often quoted her husband, deceased for almost twenty years.
    It was a much smaller household than that of the Urquharts. There was just one maid besides Josie. Daisy was a woman in her fifties who looked still older, worn out by years of service. Josie soon found that Daisy was lethargic so most of the work was left to her. Pilling, the butler, did little except care for the wine and was generally only half sober. He told Josie, ‘That husband of hers was