Days 38 and 39 – Write a story that is difficult to write
I am trying to create a narrative that includes what I believe to be my grandmother’s manner
…
Now, it was back to cruising, heading for Toulon, and then Naples, and I’d spent a few hours on deck watching the Mediterranean go by, as well as other ships, and a fair number of naval vessels.
It was going to get very hot if war broke out, with the dreadnoughts and battleships facing off against each other. It would make Nelson’s battle of Trafalgar look very tame indeed.
There was another chair near, and I heard it scrape softly across the floor, then stop. I glanced over at the girl as she sat down. She had a magazine in hand, perhaps bought at the railway station to read on the train down to Tilbury. She glanced around, taking in the situation and appeared to have also assessed the relative peacefulness of the corner.
“Miss Rose, oops, sorry, Rosalie.”
She frowned, then smiled, perhaps accepting that my upbringing would get in the way for a while yet. We had already decided on first names, though I usually forgot, and manners slipped in, adding a Miss before it. I should have correctly addressed her as Miss Willshire, but that seemed too formal.
“Privately, like this, I shall call you David.”
“Of course, and I agree with you. I believe we can blame Debrett’s for the naming protocol.”
She looked puzzled
“Sorry, again. There’s a book issued every year with all the titled people from the king down. My father is in there, and unfortunately, so am I.”
“I’ll have to find one. What does it say about you?”
“Third son, no chance of becoming the Duke, and unmarried. I don’t know why that would be significant.”
She smiled. Clearly, she knew something I didn’t. She said, with a half grin, “To some, you would make an excellent match. I’m sure there are mothers with plans for their daughters to marry into nobility. Even some on this ship.”
Again, there was that knowing expression, and I wondered if any of the other girls had said anything. I hoped I wasn’t giving them or anyone else the wrong impression.
“The eligibles would be in first class. It’s why I travel second. I’m not worth anything, despite having a job. Bills to pay, lifestyle to maintain, it’s ridiculous that I have to maintain a standard so the rest of the family can keep up appearances. You’re lucky. I understand your father was a well-respected businessman.”
“He was. Builder of mostly terraces, I think. Sometimes he worked on specific public buildings. There’s stonework of his on display in Abergavenny. I mean to go there one day and see it.”
“Unlike my family, who have no claim to have created a lasting reminder of our existence.” It often bothered me that we were not making a difference, not in a manner that anyone in a hundred years would look back and see evidence of it.
“What do your parents think of you going to Australia, of all places?”
“My father died about six years back, and my mother, five. But if they were alive, perhaps they would be a little pensive. But I am going to visit my uncle’s son, Henry, and his daughter Emma, who is two years older than me. We have been corresponding for quite some years, and she suggested I might come out, especially now I’m an orphan, of sorts.”
“No brothers and sisters?”
“I would have had another older brother, but he died 17 months after being born. I know my mother took a while to get over that. And father, given he was a son.”
It was not spoken with rancour, but there was that undercurrent of how different boys were treated.
“But I have a few stepbrothers and sisters, so I’m not alone. I get to see them as well as my uncles and aunts from time to time. But enough about me, you are far more interesting. Tell me about your family.”
I would have said the opposite was true, but I gave her my usual spiel without glorifying the aristocracy like my brothers would, without making it sound better or worse and with sensitivity to others’ situations. Not everyone was lucky to have parents like mine; if it could be said, being mired in tradition and expectation was a blessing.
It was clear to me she was not rich but comfortable. She had the education and manners of a girl who went to decent schools. She spoke well and was knowledgeable enough to hold her own in a conversation. She was, however, a little shy or perhaps reserved, and I found that a quality rather than a problem.
And best of all, she made pleasant company of the sort that a companionable silence would not be seen as awkward.
“So,” she said at the end of it, “all children are the same. They just live in different houses.”
“I wish I could say that for some of the children in first class. Proper little spoilt brats they are.”
I could see from her expression that she agreed but remained silent on the subject. Those children had nannies travelling with them, but that didn’t guarantee obedience. In our class, there were no nannies, and the mother coped. By and large, they were well behaved, and now that the ship school had kicked in, there weren’t so many running around.
“They probably don’t get to see their parents as often,” she said, “with nannies and servants looking after them. I was lucky my nanny cared, as did the domestic staff. My father was away for business a lot, but my mother was always there.
“Then you were indeed lucky. I’m not sure how I would categorise my experience other than that a lot of it was at boarding school. My brothers loved it. I hated it.”
“And yet here you are, and a lawyer as well. My father always talked of sending me to University, but he died before I was of age, and my mother, bless her soul, didn’t believe in girls getting higher education, that our world was one of running a house and having children. Can’t say the idea of that has appealed to me, but I’m sure that’s where I’ll end up, like it or lump it.”
“Do you work?”
A momentary flash of the eyes. “Of course. I have to support myself. I have a great job in the drapery department at a large store in Gillingham. Slade and Sons. They allowed me to live there after my mother died, and the house we had wasn’t ours, so I couldn’t live there. I’ve been at Gillingham almost since I turned sixteen. I have been working towards becoming a milliner.”
Clearly, she could see that as a man, I had no idea what she was talking about.
“I design and make hats for ladies, and sometimes they let me work on dresses. I make all my own.”
For a confessed shop girl, she was so much more. It explained the hat. It explained her undeniable elegance, manner and self-confidence.
“Lady Penelope would absolutely love that blue hat you were wearing the day we boarded the ship. It certainly stood out.”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
Lady Penelope would like her dresses, too. “Perhaps if I give you an address, you could send a card. I’m sure Lady Penelope would like to see what you can do for her. She would definitely like your style.”
Understated but elegant, and yet I was sure Penelope would like to have a personal dress maker that wasn’t trying too hard to make a statement, the gist of her rant the last time she visited and bent my ear on a subject, there was no proper answer I could give to what I discovered was a rhetorical question.
I could see that the magazine she brought with her was about fashion.
“Again, thank you. It is something I intend to explore when I go home.”
A steward appeared, and we ordered drinks. I politely requested her to let me pay, but not in any way an obligation on her part for recompense. I had an arrangement my father had set up, and why not lean on his generosity?
She accepted graciously, but I knew she would find a way to repay me. It was going to make the voyage all the more interesting.
…
© Charles Heath 2025-2026
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 