Our Lizzie (55 page)

Only she couldn't ask him—
wouldn't
ask him. She had too much pride to do that.

*   *   *

Lizzie's baby was born on 20 September, after a prolonged labour. “Eeh, it's a big 'un,” the midwife said complacently as she tidied the little boy up. “You did well to get him out, lass, you being so small. Though you've got decent hips for your size. That'll be what did it.”

Polly, who had been there with Lizzie all the time, smiled at her sister. “He's beautiful.”

As they laid her son in her arms, Lizzie could hardly breathe for joy, for he was beautiful. He didn't look anything like Sam. He was just—himself.

“What are you going to call him?” the midwife asked. “Sam for your husband?”

Lizzie shuddered. “No. I've always had a fancy for Matthew.”

“That's a lovely name,” Polly said softly, patting her arm.

They tried to make her rest in bed, but Lizzie felt fine and very restless. Within a couple of days she was pottering around the house, ignoring the warnings the midwife gave her to lie up. On the fourth day, she sent Polly back home to her family and managed on her own from then on, with a little help from Emma and Blanche.

But within ten days she was going mad spending so much time alone, so she put the baby in the fine new pram she had bought him with Sam's money and pushed him into town. It was good to get out in the fresh air, and it was a fine day. Everyone seemed very cheerful because the Allied offensive was going well. They were talking again about the war finishing by Christmas, as they had done when it first started. Only this time, maybe they were right.

She didn't see the figure on the park bench until she was nearly past it, then she hesitated and stared into Peter Dearden's unwinking gaze. She saw anger in it, and disapproval, and her own anger rose to meet his. She stopped wheeling the pram, put its brake on and went to stand in front of him, arms akimbo.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

He scowled at her. “I can look at you any way I want.” He jerked his head towards the pram. “Does he resemble his dear father?”

Lizzie shrugged. “No, actually. He looks like himself.” Still angry, she sat down on the bench beside him. “I'm not going until you've told me why you keep looking at me as if—as if I'm a worm.”

“Then I'll have to leave you to it, won't I?” Peter stood up hastily and lost his balance, so that she grabbed at his arm and pulled him back to sit beside her.

“Damnation!” He glared at her. “Let go of me, Lizzie Thoxby.”

“No.” To make sure he didn't go, she nipped the crutches out of his hand and tossed them across the grass.

“What the hell did you do that for?”

“To keep you here. I'll go an' pick them up once you've told me why you look at me as if you hate me.” She wanted to sob, for he was still staring at her like that, but she wasn't going to let it pass. She'd had enough of being cowed by men.

“Why do you think?” he asked.

“If I knew, I wouldn't be asking you.”

He stared down at his hands, then across the grass. “I thought you'd left him for good.”

“Sam?”

“Yes.”

“I thought I had, too.”

“But when he came for you, you went tamely back to him.” He gestured towards the pram. “Right back into his bed.”

“He dragged me back—and dragged me into his bed, too. Only he didn't wait to get me to bed, he forced me on the kitchen floor in Murforth the first time.”

Peter breathed deeply, his breaths harsh and painful-sounding. “But you stayed with him. You
stayed!
”

But Lizzie had heard the pain in his voice and it gave her new hope. “You didn't get my letter, then?”

“I haven't had a single letter from you since Christmas last.”

“I wrote—after Sam had been killed. I explained what had happened.” And had wept over the paper as she wrote, for it was still painful to her then.

“I never got any letters. Not one. I thought—I thought you didn't care any more.”

Silence fell. She looked at him, caught him looking at her, and said, “I didn't write again when you didn't answer because I thought you didn't want me to.”

There was silence between them, broken only by the cries of some little children playing at bat and ball.

“It was all so painful,” Lizzie said quietly. She still couldn't think about those last days with Sam without stirring up nightmares again.

She could feel Peter's eyes on her and shook her head, trying to brush the memories away. “The night he was killed,” she said in a tight, hard voice, “he found your letters and tried to strangle me. He broke my arm as well.”

Peter could feel his own anger dissipating. “But Mum wrote to say you'd gone back to him.”

Lizzie looked at him in puzzlement.

“And since your letters had stopped, I thought—that you'd gone back willingly.”

“Never that. You could have trusted me a little, Peter.”

Silence again, then as she looked sideways, she saw he was weeping, silent tears streaking down his thin, drawn face. “Oh, love, don't!” She put one hand on his arm.

He gulped. “I had built up some hope again—hope of a life after the war. I'd lost hope, you see, before I met you that time in Manchester, and you gave it me back somehow. Then—when I thought you'd—it took all the hope away again, you see.”

And she saw then how hurt he'd been by the war. How fragile he was.

“No.” She laid one hand tentatively on his and when he didn't push her away, clasped his fingers in hers. “I didn't go back to him willingly. He had to tie me to the bed at night to keep me there. I hated him.”

Peter was looking at the pram. “But you still have his baby. Sam's still with you.”

She let go of his hand, got up and marched over to the pram, picking up Matthew and dumping him on Peter's lap. “You take a good look at that child, Peter Dearden. He's himself, not Sam. He's
my
son, too, you know. And he's a lovely little lad.”

As if to prove it, Matthew opened his eyes, blinked at the bright sunlight and nestled against Peter, murmuring disapproval of the awkward way he was being held.

“There's the hope you're looking for, hope for the future,” Lizzie said, her voice ringing with confidence. “Hope lies in the children who'll have better lives than we did. Well, this child is
my
hope, any road. And he can be yours, too, if you'll let him.”

She allowed the silence to continue for a few moments, pleased when Peter at last began to jiggle the baby and murmur nonsense to him. She saw then that for a time, until Peter had recovered, she'd have to be the strong one, the one to take the initiative. She'd heard other women talking at the munitions factory when their wounded husbands had been sent home; heard them saying how the war had marked their men, taken the heart out of them. Now she looked into Peter's brown eyes and saw horror lurking there, too.

“It was bad, wasn't it?” she asked gently.

He nodded.

“Will you have to go back?”

“Maybe. It depends on this leg. It's taking rather a long time to heal.”

“Don't drop him!” Lizzie grabbed at Matthew and deliberately pressed closer to Peter. With one hand she held her son steady, with the other she reached for Peter's head and pulled it towards her. “You daft ha'porth!” she scolded softly. “You should have written and asked me what was wrong.”

And they turned all of a sudden into a tangle of baby and kisses and rough khaki jacket.

Lizzie's hat blew off and she chuckled. “Hold him!” she yelled, letting go of Matthew and chasing after it, coming back breathless and laughing, waving the hat triumphantly.

And Peter couldn't help laughing, too. For suddenly he'd seen hope reborn, not in the child but in her. Oh, she was a lively lass, his Lizzie was. And she was
his
Lizzie, had never stopped being that. Joy surged up in him and he had to fight back more tears.

“Let's go home and get a cup of tea. I'm dying of thirst,” she declared. She had the baby securely tucked in the pram within seconds, Peter's crutches by his side, and was fairly dancing with impatience to be off.

He thought she was the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen in his life. “I love you, Lizzie. With all my heart.”

“I should hope so.” She grinned. “And I love you, too.”

He had to kiss her again.

“We'd better get married quickly,” she decided as they pulled apart.

He blinked and stopped short. “Isn't that my job—asking you to marry me?”

“No. Not this time.” She looked blindly towards the water glinting in the little lake. “This time I'm doing the choosing, and I'm going to be an equal partner when we're wed as well.”

“I can see I'm going to be a very henpecked husband,” he said with mock sorrow.

She stopped walking for a moment to beam at him. “You are that.”

Then she was off, rushing the pram down the hill, cooing to the baby and only stopping to wait for Peter at the bottom. “Come on! Can't you do better than that?” she demanded.

And he laughed back at her. “No, I bloody well can't.” But he didn't care, because the hope was still there, glowing inside him.

*   *   *

They seemed to spend a lot of time laughing together from then on, as they broke the news to an astonished Sally, arranged a quick wedding and celebrated in style with all Lizzie's family. And it seemed part of their whole joyful new life that the war ended before Peter could be called back to the trenches.

“Eh, our Lizzie's looking like her old self again,” Percy said to Mrs. D after the wedding. “It's years since I've seen her looking so happy.”

“Or my Peter.” She mopped her eyes, as she had been doing all day. “I'm feeling a bit happy myself.” And started sobbing aloud, yet laughing at the same time. “Eeh, I'm a right fool, aren't I?” she said, when Emma had calmed her down. “I don't know what's got into me today. But my Bob would have been that happy to see the two of them. That happy.”

*   *   *

That night, as Lizzie got ready for bed, she lost some of her sparkle. “I—I'd better warn you,” she confessed breathlessly as Peter limped in from the bathroom, “I'm not very good at it.”

“Good at what?”

She gestured to the bed. “At—you know, making a man happy.”

“You make me happy just by being yourself.”

“That's a lovely thing to say, but—”

He stopped her words with a kiss and when it was over, laid her down on the bed and said very solemnly, “It takes two people to make love, Lizzie, not one. Let me show you.”

Hours later, she was still awake, happily watching the moonlight trace its way across the room. Peter was right. It did take two people. And when it was done with such tenderness, making love was wonderful.

The last of her worries died away, the fear that she was unnatural. Sighing happily, she slid an arm round his waist and snuggled down to sleep. She was sure—very, very sure—that her life would be happy from now on. She would
make
it happy!

 

 

 

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also by Anna Jacobs

Salem Street

High Street

Ridge Hill

Hallam Square

Spinners Lake

Jessie

THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.

An imprint of St. Martin's Press.

OUR LIZZIE
. Copyright © 1999 by Anna Jacobs. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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First published in Great Britain by Hodder and Stoughton, a Division of Hodder Headline PLC, in 1999.

First U.S. Edition: July 2003

eISBN 9781466882317

First eBook edition: August 2014