A Mother’s Spirit

‘Hardly, sir, with no one on the horizon.’

‘Well, your funeral then?’ Brian said. ‘And after your death you can have a great mausoleum built and people will come and look at it. “Joe Sullivan,” one will say to another, “Who was he now?”

‘“Well, now, I am not too sure,” will be the reply, “but he must be someone important to have this huge monument built.”’

Joe was laughing as he said, ‘Not that either, sir.’

‘Then what, for God’s sake?’ Brian said. ‘What is the point of saving for saving’s sake? As you are not prepared to enter the marriage stakes, there won’t even be a son or daughter to leave it all to after your day.’

Joe said nothing, but he knew there would never be a child for him, because he had given his heart to Gloria Brannigan. That was a great cross for him to bear, especially as he knew that all he could ever be to her was a friend.

Everyone, even the servants, had looked forward to Gloria coming home for good. Joe felt the same, but with some trepidation because he knew what a strain it had been living in the same house as her in the holidays, and yet he couldn’t wait to see her. She had always been like a ray of sunshine in the house and brought the whole place alive, and Joe knew that Brian and Norah looked forward to having their little girl back home again, where they thought she belonged.

But it was soon apparent to Joe that Gloria had changed. She had finally grown up, he supposed, but there was no trace of the fairly compliant child about the girl that faced them across the table on her first night home.

They had almost finished the meal when she said, ‘I am tired of learning now. I want to live a little and have some fun with my friends.’ She turned to her parents. ‘You have to realise that I am an adult now and entitled to more freedom.’

Joe could see her point, though he didn’t say so. He found while he could chat easily to Brian and Norah when Gloria wasn’t around, he was much more reticent with her there because her nearness affected him alarmingly.

He doubted that Brian or Norah noticed this for they were used to their daughter holding the floor. He too loved to hear her talk, the words tripping over her pretty little lips; he liked to watch her face light up and her eyes sparkle as she told them all some amusing tale, and to hear her tinkling laugh. To him she was a perfect being, truly beautiful, and although he knew it was futile to love her as he did, he couldn’t seem to help himself.

‘Really, women today want to have the same freedom as men,’ Gloria was saying.

Joe heard Norah’s sharp intake of breath, but Gloria either didn’t notice or didn’t care because she continued, ‘Many of my friends have older brothers and they have all sorts going on at the colleges they attend – ball games, crew races and college hops. Oh, the list is endless. They want us to go along and enjoy it and, really, why shouldn’t we?’

‘Are you out of your mind?’ Brian exploded. ‘A little freedom is one thing, but this is nonsense, Gloria. You must see that.’

‘No, I don’t see that at all,’ Gloria stated flatly. ‘What’s wrong with what I said?’

‘This silly nonsense about being equal with men, for one thing. It isn’t how respectable women talk at all.’

‘And you can’t go to events at men’s colleges unchaperoned,’ Norah put in.

‘Will the pair of you stop being so old-fashioned and stuffy?’ Gloria cried in exasperation. ‘And if Joe will show me how to drive the car, how will you stop me going out when I want to?’

‘I could forbid it,’ Brian said.

‘Yes, Daddy,’ Gloria said. ‘And I could just as easily take no notice.’

Brian’s face went puce with temper, but Gloria ignored him. She leaped to her feet, saying as she did so, ‘Anyway, no time like the present. I’ll wait for you outside, Joe,’ and she disappeared out of the door.

She had put Joe into an intolerable position. He looked across the table to Brian and said, ‘What d’you want me to do, sir?’

Brian shook his head. He looked like a defeated man and Norah seemed horror-struck at the turn of events. Joe felt sorry for them both, though. In a way, he thought, they had brought it upon themselves because the two of them had indulged Gloria for far too long to start denying her things now and expect her to just accept it.

This was proved when Brian said, ‘I don’t know, Joe. I am not sure that I know anything any more. But you best start teaching Gloria to drive the car if she is so set on it. Better that than she takes it onto the roads without the least idea of how to drive it and ends up having an accident.’

Joe went, but he was cross with Gloria and within a few minutes of him getting in the car, she was aware of it.

‘You’re annoyed with me, aren’t you?’ she said.

Joe was too angry to be his usual cautious self when dealing with Gloria and he burst out, ‘Yes I am, Miss Gloria. You were totally inconsiderate of your parents’ feelings tonight and put me in a devil of a fix, and really the only crime they have ever committed is that of loving you too much.’

‘I know, Joe,’ Gloria said. ‘And I am sorry for them really. I am not completely heartless, but I know them, and if I’d shown any sign of weakness, they would have ground me down like they have in the past. Do you know, Joe, I had more freedom at the convent than I have ever been allowed here. What madness is that?’

Joe sighed. ‘And I have seen how frustrated you have got at times, but really it’s because your parents love you and don’t want anything to happen to you.’

‘I know, but, Joe, they are smothering me,’ Gloria cried.

‘Miss Gloria, they have missed you sorely when you have been away at school,’ Joe told her softly. ‘It isn’t unreasonable for them to want to spend some time with you now that you are finished with education. I bet that’s what they were looking forward to. Couldn’t this great declaration of your need for freedom have waited at least until you’d been home with your family a while, and then introduced it more slowly?’

‘I had to do it while I had the courage,’ Gloria said. Then, catching sight of the reproach on Joe’s face, she cried, ‘Don’t look at me that way. I talked it over with the girls and we all agreed that it was best to be straight with them from the start.’

‘Better for you,’ Joe said. ‘Sometimes you have to consider other people’s feelings too, and if necessary put them first for a change. Still,’ he said heavily, ‘I suppose the damage is done now.’

‘I suppose so,’ Gloria said, ‘though I promise that I will try and make amends, and one thing I can be grateful for anyway is that you have lost that artificial and stiff way you used to talk to me, even if you are taking me to task.’

‘Miss Gloria –’

‘Why did you change so completely, Joe?’ Gloria said. ‘I often wanted to ask you.’

Joe’s heart was hammering in his chest so loudly that he was surprised that Gloria couldn’t hear it, and the roof of his mouth felt unaccountably dry. He forced himself to speak slowly and calmly. ‘I changed because you changed,’ he said. ‘As you grew from a child to an adult, I could no longer treat you in the free and easy way that I once did.’

‘Oh, stuff and nonsense, Joe!’ Gloria exclaimed.

‘It wouldn’t have been appropriate.’

‘Joe …’

Joe knew that he had to put an end to the questions before he betrayed himself altogether and so he faced her and said, ‘Miss Gloria, do you want me to teach you to drive this car or don’t you, because we are losing all the light and there are many other things I could be doing?’

‘In other words,’ said Gloria, ‘end of conversation.’

‘Unless it concerns the motor car or driving, yes.’

Gloria had no desire to alienate Joe. To obtain true freedom she had to learn to drive the car and to do that she needed him. ‘All right then,’ she said. ‘You win. Show me what I have to do.’

Gloria soon picked up how to drive the Ford, and Joe was glad, for it had been agony for him to sit so close to her, to breathe in her heady perfume, longing sometimes to kiss those luscious lips. He was often truly uncomfortable because she did use the confines of the car to ask him personal questions and tease him in the way she had used to. He was glad when he felt that she had the confidence and skill to drive the New York streets in comparative safety.

After that there was no holding her at all. She’d be off to New York on vast shopping trips, returning with her friends, the car packed to the gunnels with bags full of clothes. They would often be wearing the new creations as they sat down to dinner, dresses made by the most fashionable designers, Chanel, Lanvin and Patou.

The girls were inspired by the styles of stars of the cinema screen, such as Lillian Gish and Mary Pickford, which they’d discuss endlessly and in glowing terms, and would scrutinise the fashion magazines like Vogue, or Queen or Harper’s Bazaar to be sure they were up to the minute.

These clothes were nothing like the conservative outfits Norah wore in mainly pastel shades. The majority of the new fashions were in vivid vibrant colours of green, blue or red, or in loud floral designs. The young were done with restricting corsets too, and instead wore silk camisoles, which flattened their chests in line with the fashion for the slightly boyish figure, suited to shift dresses with no waist and knife-edge pleats in the skirts.

‘Jean Patou has a darling little suit in wool and jersey,’ Gloria said one day, drawing the pillar-box-red illustration from her bag. ‘Just right for the cooler days of summer, don’t you think?’

‘I’d think more of it if there were more to it,’ Brian growled. ‘That skirt is far too short.’