Girls at the Piano

dreamed of being alone with her husband again, in whatever version of privacy the newlyweds—who until now had only spent a handful of days together—could muster? Perhaps she was torn between excitement, anticipation and an anxious knot in her stomach. On seeing his new wife again, did John lift Alice in his arms? Hug her with his whole body? Or greet her awkwardly, like the almost-stranger that she was? Even if Alice briefly regretted marrying him so soon after meeting him, I suspect, on seeing him again, she felt immediately reassured by his presence.

We don’t know what, if anything, John knew about the Admiralty Office’s decision before coming ashore. We don’t know what Alice’s mother made of the letter, though it’s easy enough to imagine her being horrified at the mere hint of impropriety in relation to her daughter, even if it would turn out to be a simple clerical error. We will never know just how awkward the reunion was.

As expected, John Henry Edwards gave his wife and his in-laws a perfectly reasonable explanation for the mix-up. The ‘present Allottee’ of his Navy Separation Allowance was his dear mother. The mistake had all been his, in not informing the Admiralty of the change in his marital status. He apologised to Alice, James and Charlotte, reassuring them that he would sort everything out.

Did they believe him?

Would you?

As John was on a brief shore leave, he was desperate to be with his new wife. And, despite the bureaucratic bungle, she with him, I imagine. But I find it difficult to see Alice taking her husband upstairs to her bed while her parents were in the house. Perhaps Charlotte and James Taylor begrudgingly gave the newlyweds some time alone, and spent an afternoon staring into their drinks, thinking all the thoughts they dared not say out loud. Or they gave John the benefit of the doubt because they knew his history and it made sense that he’d been sending money to his mother after he had been widowed. Or they were riddled with doubt but from neither a legal nor moral standpoint could do anything about it, until Mr Bradley could pressure the Admiralty for an answer.

In early July, John Henry Edwards went back to sea aboard the Mameluke. On 10 July, a letter arrived from the Admiralty. Again their office refused to supply further information. One week later, Mr Bradley composed the following letter in response. It paints a vivid picture of the anxiety and despair now gripping the household at 370 Dumbarton Road.

102 Bath Street,

Glasgow, 18^th July 1918

The Accountant General of the navy, Admiralty,

4a Newgate Street,

London, E. C. 1

Sir,

I duly received your reply dated 10^th inst. to my letter to you of 15^th ultimo, relative to the wife of John Henry Edwards, Stoker Petty Officer, 305849, and your refusal to supply information asked.

I must ask you for your authority for withholding information. My client who supposes herself to be the wife of this man is at present in a terrible position, as since I wrote you John Henry Edwards has been living with her during a short leave, after persuading my client and his daughter that it was his mother who was getting the allowance. My client and his daughter are respectable citizens of this country and should it be the case that the Department is satisfied with the facts, as represented in the letter addressed by you to the lady on 5^th March last, she must at once be put in possession of the necessary details to release her from the intolerable position in which she finds herself.

All I require from you is the name and address of the present allottee. I shall make all other necessary enquiries myself. I cannot conceive why you should conceal the name of the present allottee from a woman, who if your history be well founded, is the victim of a thorough paced scoundrel.

I am, Sir,

Your obedient Servant,

(sgd) George Bradley

But not a word of correspondence, no fresh scrap of information, arrived for the next two and a half months. Not one step was taken nearer to resolving what had by now surely become a torment to Alice. Mr Bradley refers to her ‘intolerable position’ and the possibility of Henry being a ‘thorough paced scoundrel’, but we have no way of knowing if these descriptions are Alice’s. I doubt it; they sound much more like the words of her father and family solicitor, older men with a cynical suspicion of what the truth might be.

Mr Bradley followed up with the Admiralty on 4 September, the day before Alice’s first wedding anniversary, with another inquiry, given that so much time had elapsed without response.

Finally, in the first week of October, Alice got her answer.

Admiralty,

5^th October 1918

Sir,

With reference to your letter of the 4^th ultimo, and previous correspondence, relative to the wife of John H. Edwards, Stoker Petty Officer, 305849, I have to inform you that the question of withholding the information asked for by you has been re-considered, and, in the special circumstances, it has been decided to make an exception to the general rule in this case.

I have accordingly to inform you that this Petty Officer was married in the Parish Church of Falmouth on the 13^th September 1906 to Ann Barrett, and that, in February last, the latter was living at No. 2, Pembroke Lane, Devonport.

I am, Sir,

Your obedient Servant,

(sgd) C. M. Muir,

for Accountant-General of the Navy.

Her husband was still married to Ann. She had not died giving birth to their baby son. She was living in their home on the Royal Navy base in the south of England, carrying on the unpaid labour of child-rearing, while John Henry Edwards enjoyed shore leave and—after a hasty wedding to satisfy appearances in Glasgow—the affections of his shipmate’s sister.

Alice reverted to her maiden name, though now it reverberated, if only between her own ears, with her humiliation of being neither married nor a maiden. Alice May Morrison Taylor fulfilled all the non-technical requirements of