For Better For Worse (14 page)

Kaye felt her face flame. She stopped walking and stared at the doctor in disbelief.

‘I thought you knew,’ he said.

‘No,’ said Kaye. She felt nauseous. ‘I had no idea.’ They began walking again, but her meeting with her aunt was spoiled. The only thought in her head was,
how could you do that Henry, you bloody sod.

*

‘Occklepep! Occklepep!’ Lu-Lu pointed at the window and jumped up and down with excitement. Sarah smiled as she caught sight of Peter Millward pulling faces on the other side of the glass. ‘Oh yes, it’s Uncle Peter.’ It was now Sunday and since that day in court, she had slipped back into her usual routine, including her weekly hospital visit to the old lady who had lived in the two downstairs rooms. She looked pretty dreadful these days, thin, wasted and barely able to hold a conversation. The nursing staff didn’t even bother to put her teeth in because her gums had obviously shrunk so much. It didn’t take a genius to know that she was never going to come back to the cottage, which was probably why the landlord had served an eviction order on the property.

She opened the door and Peter bent down to hug the girls. They had grown very fond of him and he of them. As he stood up, he held up a road map. ‘Who would like a ride into the country?’ he said, his bright eyes shining.

‘Me, me,’ cried Jenny, and Lu-Lu joined in, despite not having the faintest clue what it meant. Sarah began to protest but quickly saw that she was outnumbered.

She’d been lucky the day Kaye dropped her at the house. When she and the children came in from the backyard, Kaye had assumed she’d been crying with relief that the day was over. She’d made them both a cup of tea and while her back was turned, Sarah had slipped the eviction notice into the half-open drawer on the kitchen table so that Kaye was none the wiser.

She had just over a month to find a new place, but even before she set out, Sarah knew it was tall order. Although Mr Lovett’s money brought a little extra into the house, she still didn’t have enough to pay two weeks’ rent up front, something which was usually required in these days of acute housing shortage. Anyway, as soon as any prospective landlady discovered she was a single mother with two small children, the door was closed. It wasn’t always that they didn’t want children, but they knew that a woman alone would be a liability when it came to paying the rent. If she had no permanent job and no visible means of support, there was always the risk in their minds that she might be on the game. She had encountered the same problems when she’d moved into the little cottage. She had only got the place because of her promise to look after the old lady, which she’d done faithfully until she’d become too ill and had to go into hospital.

By the middle of the week, Sarah still had nothing and she was desperate. She had packed up what little she had and kept it in the lean-to shed in the garden just in case she had to make a quick dash for it. She told the children nothing. It was better that Jenny didn’t have any more worries than she needed to have, and of course Lu-Lu was too young to understand anyway. Mrs Rivers had looked over the garden fence one afternoon. Which was a bit of a surprise because she hadn’t realised her neighbour was back.

‘They’ve locked him up.’

‘Yes,’ said Sarah. She didn’t really want to discuss what had happened and she was still feeling a bit cross about the theft of her purse.

‘I’m not sorry,’ Mrs Rivers went on. Sarah was tempted to give her a mouthful until she added, ‘He was always knocking me about.’

‘You mean Nathan?’

Mrs Rivers nodded. ‘They came for him while you were at the trial. Pinching coal he was.’

‘I’m sorry for your troubles,’ was all Sarah could say.

* * *

Peter drove them to a place a called Midhurst. The weather was becoming cooler but there was still enough warmth in the sun to make an enjoyable time, and as they drove through the Sussex countryside, the autumnal colours were stunning. They stopped near Benbow pond where the children fed the ducks and black swans, and from there Peter took them to the Queen Elizabeth oak, a massive tree reputedly a place where Queen Elizabeth I had once sheltered more than 350 years before.

Peter had come prepared. As the children played, he laid a plaid blanket on the ground and invited Sarah to sit down. The picnic basket he carried contained a green and cream coloured flask of hot tea and he had sandwiches and cake. They sat together, eating, talking and laughing, and at last Sarah began to relax.

‘Can I go and play now Mummy?’ Jenny had put her face up so that Sarah could wipe the crumbs from her mouth.

‘Stay where we can see you,’ Sarah cautioned, as she wet the corner of her handkerchief and rubbed Jenny’s mouth, ‘and look after your sister.’

While Jenny went to look for daisies to make a daisy chain, Lu-Lu toddled after her big sister. Sarah leaned back on her elbows.

Peter was on his side, chewing a blade of grass. She tried to like his closeness, but every time she looked at him, her eye was drawn to his long and protruding nasal hair. ‘So,’ he smiled, ‘are you going to tell me what happened in Lewes?’

By now the children were playing with the children of another family sitting closer to the wooden area. They were well out of earshot, so Sarah told him. He listened impassively and then leaned across the empty plates and took her hand.

‘If he was already married to the first Mrs Royale when he married you,’ he began, ‘that means you were never married in the first place.’

Sarah lowered her eyes and nodded.

‘You know what this means, don’t you?’ he said eagerly. ‘You are free to marry again.’

Jenny shouted and waved, and her mother and Peter waved back.

‘I know you don’t have feelings for me,’ he began again, ‘but I am not a bad person, Sarah. If you would consent to marry me, we could have a good life together. I don’t want to be on my own anymore. I’d be patient and I promise I would always look after you and the girls. I can offer you a nice home and you know for yourself that the business is expanding.’

She stared at him in amazement, not knowing what to say. Marrying Peter would certainly get her out of a hole, but she didn’t love him. In fact, she’d never even thought of him in that way. She wasn’t sure if she could bear him holding her close to him and that made her feel guilty. He was kind and reliable, but he wasn’t her type … what then was her type? A smooth-talking bigamist, she thought bitterly, who had deceived her so cruelly that she honestly felt she could never trust a man again. Not even a man like Peter.

‘Don’t say anything now,’ he said, immediately sensing that she was going to turn him down. ‘Just think about it, all right?’

She nodded. ‘I will do the bookkeeping jobs though.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Are you sure you’ll have time?’

‘I’ll make time.’

Jenny wanted to sit on a tree branch, so he stood up to go and lift her. As she watched his receding back, Sarah’s mind was racing. Would it be so bad being married to Peter? He was no oil painting but the girls would have a much better chance in life. He would provide for them all, she knew that, but was it fair to take up the offer? He deserved better than to be used in this way. And what about her wedding night? Could she give herself to Peter? As the thought crossed her mind, she found herself shuddering. She didn’t want that … not from him … perhaps not from anyone ever again.

*

‘Has she come down today?’

Judith Mitchell shook her head. ‘I’m really worried. She doesn’t talk and she doesn’t want to come downstairs. She just sits in her bedroom looking out of the window.’

Malcolm Mitchell tut-tutted irritably. He had been struggling to control this situation for almost a week now. It was bad enough trying to keep a lid on it at the council offices. If anyone on the housing committee found out that his daughter was involved in a bigamy case, he’d lose any chance he had to stand for mayor. After all his hard work, it would be bloody unfair if this episode spoiled his chances. The doctors had told him his daughter was depressed, which was understandable, but Malcolm was from the old school. In his day when something bad happened, you didn’t mope around, making yourself miserable about something you couldn’t alter, you pulled yourself together and got on with it. He didn’t understand why anyone would want to give up in the way she had. Granted, what had happened to her was awful. She’d been deceived by a rotten scoundrel and she was having a baby outside of marriage, but hadn’t he protected her from the public gaze? Hadn’t he kept the gutter press away? They’d told her old friends that she’d gone abroad for a while and, what’s more, he’d even arranged for her confinement to be kept secret. That meant that once the baby was gone, after a few weeks of recuperation, she could resume her old life again and nobody would be any the wiser. He knew that whatever it took, he had to stop her from getting a reputation for being a ‘bad girl’. What more did she want? Crying all day and refusing to talk to him and her mother wouldn’t solve a damned thing.

Malcolm helped himself to a whisky and threw himself dejectedly into a chair. Didn’t anybody in this family care about him? He was beginning to make his mark with his fellow councillors and had already impressed the current mayor, Leonard Bentall, by his suggestion that they should have a telegram already prepared for when the royal baby was born.

‘Good thinking, Malcolm,’ Leonard had said, giving him a hearty slap on the back. ‘Splendid publicity for the town if we’re the first.’

His suggestion for a public meeting about Beach House had also met with approval. Nobody would bother to come. Who cared about some old dump of a mansion when people needed houses? They could slap a demolition order on it and pull it down. It would cost a fortune to repair and the place was a bloody eyesore anyway.

He downed his drink, mounted the stairs two at a time, knocked on Annie’s door and walked in. She was sitting in the chair knitting something. He walked over to her and planted a rough kiss on her forehead. To his surprise and delight, she looked up at him and smiled. ‘Hello, Father.’

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked cautiously.

‘Better.’ She didn’t say why and he didn’t ask. They made small talk and then she promised to come downstairs for dinner when the gong went. Malcolm left the room happier than he’d felt in a long time. He really had sorted it out. She was all right now. With a bit of luck they could get through this and, providing she kept out of public view even at this late stage, they could still keep the baby a secret.

As he closed the door, Annie slid her hand back into her cardigan pocket and pulled out the re-addressed letter. In the moments before they’d said their last goodbye, she had given Mrs Holborn her parent’s address and her old neighbour had kept her word. She had re-addressed a letter sent to her Horsham home and it had arrived with the second post. Her father had been playing golf and her mother was out shopping, so the maid had brought it up to her room straight away. She knew from the markings on the outside that it had come from Winchester prison – it was from Henry. In it he’d told her he hadn’t forgotten her. He still loved her, in fact she was the only woman he had ever truly loved. He’d asked her to take care of his unborn son and he’d promised to fetch them both as soon as he got out of jail. Annie smiled. Henry went on to explain that what had happened had all been a ghastly mistake. Those other women had made up everything. They’d duped him and lied about him. But then she’d always known that, hadn’t she?

*

There was a job advertised in the local paper.
Caretaker wanted for a group of people living in Alms Houses. Some light cleaning required and non-medical duties.
Sarah could hardly believe her eyes. This had to be an answer to her prayers. The wage was only 22/6 a week but the biggest perk of all was that the job came with free accommodation. Her heartbeat quickened. The residents were elderly but able to look after themselves. The charity running the scheme were looking for a young person – at twenty-eight she was that – and a caring individual – she was that too. A person in good health – she stepped up to the mark in that as well. Free accommodation. That would solve so many problems. She could easily get by on that wage. Hadn’t she been living for some weeks on a lot less than that? She could manage to keep up the bookkeeping and maybe even get that sewing machine a little quicker. The children didn’t have grandparents. Jenny and Lu-Lu would love having the residents fussing over them, and wouldn’t the old people enjoy having young children living nearby? The more she thought about it, the better it sounded. There was a cut-off date for applications and she was in luck there as well. All she had to do was get references, but she was sure that would be no problem. The ladies she cleaned for were always praising her work and she knew the landlord at the pub would give her a good reference. As soon as she could, Sarah dashed off a letter and posted it straight away. Perhaps her luck had changed at last.

‘If you’ve got money, you must have pinched it.’

‘I never stole in my life!’

‘Oh yes, you have. You used to steal from me.’

‘For heaven’s sake, you old battleaxe … I was six years old …’

Kaye Royale relaxed deep into her chair and took a long drag on her cigarette. This radio play was quite good, even if she did say so herself. She tried to imagine the housewives, the retired and the people who were for some reason unable to work, glued to their wireless sets up and down the country. She had enjoyed success with her one-off plays for some years now, but this was her fourth play in the Fear in the Afternoon series, one of the most popular dramas on the Home Service. The voices were excellent and each actor or actress chosen seemed perfectly suited to the people she had created.

‘I can’t believe you just said that!’
the woman’s voice went on.
‘No son of mine would ever speak to his mother like that. I’m ashamed of you. All the grief you’ve caused me, I wish you’d never been born!’

‘Shut up, shut up!’