The Heart of the Family (25 page)

Francine couldn’t help laughing even though she shook her head firmly. ‘We have just had dinner together,’ she pointed out.

‘Ah, but that was just so as we could discuss having a proper dinner date,’ Brandon told her, unabashed.

Had she been ten years younger it would have been very easy to be seduced by that energetic and oh-so-American go-getting confidence that came from good looks and wealth, Francine admitted, but since she was not, she was ruefully aware that it was very easy to remain unmoved by Brandon’s determined attempt to win her over.

‘If your Ambassador gets to hear that you are trying to date an ageing British singer, he’ll be on the telephone to your parents faster than you can imagine and then we’ll both be in trouble. I value my job far too much to want to lose it because an irate American parent thinks I’m about to cradle-snatch their son.’

Francine smiled and kept her voice light. The words
and the threat of parental intervention should be enough to deflate the largest of young male egos.

‘You’re right,’ Brandon agreed promptly. ‘My dad would probably be on the next flight over.’

Francine smiled her relief, only to realise that she had been overoptimistic when he added with a wickedly male smile of his own, ‘And once he saw you he’d understand exactly why I want to date you.’ He reached across the table and took possession of Francine’s hand before she could stop him. ‘I’m not going to stop asking until you say yes, even if that means staying here all night, so you may as well give in now.’

Bella assessed Lena critically. She was certainly looking a lot more respectable this morning than she had done when Bella had first brought her home. Her hair was styled and brushed neatly, and wearing the smart maternity two-piece in navy, with its white collar and navy and white spotted bow, which Bella had given her, she looked not just passably respectable but actually very smart, Bella recognised. She certainly had more of a look of someone who would make a good worker than those girls she had been interviewing for that new position as a nursery maid-in-training, which would be coming up once the crèche was expanded. It wouldn’t be a bad thing for her to have someone she could trust working with the other nurses either. That way she could make sure that any potential problems were dealt with the minute they cropped up instead of not finding out about them until they had begun to fester. Laura had had terrible trouble with two nursery nurses who had had a falling-out about something when they had first opened. Bella certainly didn’t want that happening to her.

It would mean Lena having to stay on here with
her, of course, but Bella admitted to herself that she had actually woken up with an unfamiliar sense of anticipation this morning, knowing that she had someone living with her who actually admired her. And then there was the fact that this child Lena was carrying would be her own niece or nephew. Not that anyone could ever know that, of course.

Lena had finished her breakfast – porridge, which Bella had insisted she was to have, and a cup of tea too – yet another sign of Charlie’s sister’s kindness and generosity. She got up from the table, carrying her used crockery over to the sink where she proceeded to start washing up.

Bella’s eyes widened thoughtfully. She’d already noted how neat Lena had left her room, and how anxious she was to win her own approval. The house had felt empty since the Polanskis had left – not that she missed them for one minute, but with those empty bedrooms she was bound to have the billeting people round soon. In fact, there were so many reasons why it made good sense for her to have Lena here that Bella decided not to waste any more time merely thinking about it.

‘I’ll go up and get my things,’ Lena began. Her voice was husky, her head turned away from Bella so that Charlie’s sister wouldn’t see her tears. She felt so special and privileged to have been brought back here by Bella and looked after the way she had looked after her, and she didn’t want to repay Bella’s kindness by getting all upset now when she had to leave.

‘I’ve been thinking.’ Bella stopped her. ‘Seeing as it’s Charlie’s child you’re having – although of course you are to promise that you will never ever tell anyone
that – and since there is a vacancy coming up at the crèche – for the right kind of girl who knows how to conduct herself and be a credit to the person who recommends her – and with me already having a spare room here, you might as well stay on.’

All the blood left Lena’s face. She stared at Bella, speechless with disbelief and hope, and then stammered, ‘You mean that I can stay here, with you, in this house, and work at the crèche?’

‘For a probationary period,’ Bella confirmed. She didn’t want to leave herself with no get-out if things didn’t work out after all.

‘Oh! Oh, I can’t believe that anyone could be so kind.’ Now Lena’s face was as flushed as it had been pale, burning with awe and thankfulness as she sobbed out her gratitude and then, to Bella’s shock, put her arms around her and hugged her fiercely.

Bella had never before been hugged by another girl, and certainly not by one whose baby she could suddenly feel giving a little kick as though of approval and joy. For a second she didn’t know what on earth to do. Then, feeling awkward and yet at the same time somehow proud and elated, she hugged Lena back rather gingerly.

‘Oh, you are so good. A true saint. I don’t know what I’ve ever done to be lucky enough to have met you,’ Lena sobbed to Bella as they stepped back from one another. ‘Oh, I shall have to sit down for a minute. I’ve come over all funny.’

‘We’ll need to register you with a doctor,’ Bella announced, suddenly very aware of her new responsibilities, ‘and we’ll have to start buying things ready for the baby. When is it due?’

‘The middle of January,’ Lena told her.

She couldn’t believe her good luck. It was like a dream come true, as though somehow Bella had known that when Lena had been lying in Bella’s beautifully comfortable and clean bed last night she had said a prayer that she might never have to leave.

‘I’ve got to go to work in a minute. I’ll take you with me and get one of the other nursery maids to show you what you’ll be doing,’ Bella announced, reverting to practicality. She’d have to speak with Mr Benson, of course, she decided. She didn’t want any problems later with people saying she was showing Lena favouritism. And she’d have to explain away her presence in her own home as well. Bella thought for a minute and then had a brain wave.

‘I think it’s best for now that we just say that my auntie in Liverpool asked me to take you in on account of what’s happened to you and her being in the WVS.’

That explanation sounded vague enough to work, Bella decided. After all, with the war causing so much upheaval people didn’t have time to ask too many questions any more. Her own mother was bound to make a fuss, though. Bella gave a small inner shrug. She would just have to make it then, wouldn’t she, and she, Bella, would just have to remind both her parents how poor Lena had come to be in trouble in the first place.

‘Are you and the twins going to the Grafton this Saturday?’ Carole asked Katie as they shared their morning coffee break.

‘I expect so.’ Katie knew that Jean preferred it if the twins had someone to keep an eye on them when
they went out dancing, and there was very little that Katie wasn’t prepared to do for Luke’s mother.

‘Can I come with you then?’

‘Of course you can.’

‘I’m hoping to get an air-mail letter card this week. It’s bin nearly a month since I got the last one.’

‘They’re only allowed one a month,’ Katie reminded her. The air-mail letter cards were restricted to one per month per man, and since they were private they were much more popular with men serving in the Middle East then open aerograms.

‘Andy writes ever such cheeky stuff in his sometimes. Proper saucy,’ Carole giggled.

Katie smiled back. Luke’s letters, whilst ending with tender words of love for her personally, were the kind she could read out aloud to his family, and Katie made sure that she kept him up to date with all the family news when she wrote back to him. Of course, there were normal sea-mail letters as well, but they took six weeks or even longer to get through, and it was in these that Luke wrote rather more intimately of how much he missed her and how much he ached to hold her, and how much he hoped she was remembering that she was engaged to him and that she was letting other men know that she was officially ‘taken’.

She did miss him, of course, and she worried for him too. The desert was such a long way away, and she knew how anxiously Jean and Sam listened to the news for reports on what was happening out there. She, though, had Luke’s family to comfort and support her.

Jean had initially hoped that Luke might be home for Christmas but Katie had guessed that Sam had
more realistically doubted that this would be the case.

‘He’ll only just have landed before he’d have to come back,’ Sam had warned Jean. ‘And there’s no way the army would send men out there only to bring them back again after two or three weeks.’

‘Well, I wish they would,’ Jean had returned. ‘This will be the third Christmas of the war, Sam, and the first one that Luke hasn’t been at home.’

A lump had come into Katie’s throat when she’d seen the way Sam had put a comforting arm around Jean to draw her close. One day she and Luke would be like Jean and Sam, and they too would have their children to love and worry about – and their children’s grandparents too, of course, Katie hoped.

Seb was waiting for her as she got off the train, and Grace went straight into his arms, for once ignoring the fact that it was hardly a ‘proper’ thing to do. She’d caught the train from Liverpool straight after her shift had finished, so that they could have their two full days off together rather than lose half a day with her travelling in the morning.

‘And how’s my best girl?’ Seb asked her huskily after he had released her and they were walking arm in arm out of the station, Grace cuddling up close to his side for warmth, their breath making puffs of white vapour in the cold November evening air.

‘Your best girl?’ Grace teased him. ‘Your
only
girl, I hope you mean. Oh, Seb, I’ve missed you so much, but it won’t be long now until we can be properly together. I’ve got my final exams at the end of the month, and then … We’ll need to sort out getting the banns read. Mum’s going to have a word with our vicar for me, but you’ll have to sort out doing that down here.’

They had to break off their conversation to say ‘good evening’ to Mr Thompson, probably on his way to his billet. He was in overall charge of operations
at The Old Rectory, as the building requisitioned by the Government to house the Y Section was known.

It was so cold that Grace was glad when they reached the little teashop, which luckily was still open. They had just settled down at one of the tables tucked into a corner so that they ‘had’ to sit close together and so could surreptitiously hold hands, when the teashop door opened and a group of girls quite clearly dressed up for a night out came in. Initially Grace thought nothing of it when they looked over in their direction, but then one of them, slightly older than the others, with dark hair and hard pebble-brown eyes, detached herself and sauntered over, practically ignoring
her,
Grace thought indignantly. She then produced a cigarette and leaned across the table to ask Seb for a light, obviously without giving any thought to the fact that she was intruding and that the intrusion might not be welcome.

Worse was to come, though. Keeping her back to Grace, she perched on the edge of the table and told Seb, ‘I hope you aren’t going to let me down at the dance tomorrow night, and that you’ll be there.’

‘I let you bully me into buying two tickets, didn’t I?’ Seb answered her with a smile, ignoring the sharp look Grace was giving him.

‘So you did,’ the brunette agreed in a knowing tone that instantly got Grace’s back up even further. ‘I’ll look forward to having that dance with you.’

With that she stood up and sashayed back across the floor to join the other young women, who were now sitting down at two of the other tables.

‘Who was that?’ Grace demanded, up in arms. ‘What did she mean about you buying dance tickets and promising to dance with her?’

Grace could see from the surprised look that Seb was giving her that he was taken aback by her angry reaction.

‘Her name’s Sybil and she and the other girls have been down here on a training course for Y Section work. She’s good,’ Seb added, so approvingly that Grace’s hostility to the other woman immediately intensified.

‘She certainly seems to be good at ignoring the fact that you’re an engaged man and that your fiancée was sitting right next to you whilst she was trying to make up to you.’

Seb laughed. ‘Don’t be silly. That’s just her way. It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘I am not being silly and it does mean something – to me.’ Tears filled Grace’s eyes – tears of anger she assured herself, and the person she was most angry with was Seb because he didn’t seem to understand not just how rude Sybil had been, but, more importantly, how he should have dealt with the situation by stating very firmly that he would not be dancing with any girl other than his beloved fiancée.

‘Well, I think we’ve almost got everything now and that Baby will arrive to a properly equipped nursery,’ Bella announced in a pleased voice as she and Lena found a table in Joe Lyons and Bella summoned one of the café’s nippy waitresses.

They’d been in Liverpool all Saturday morning shopping for baby things, to add to the impressive number of essential items, as Bella referred to them, already waiting in Bella’s house.

‘And that’s all thanks to you,’ Lena said gratefully.

In Lena’s eyes now there was no one as wonderful as Bella, and no one who could ever come anywhere near being as wonderful. She had almost literally picked Lena up out of the gutter, and given her a home and a job, and, even more importantly as far as Lena was concerned, given her her friendship as well.

In the handful of days Lena had been living with Bella, she had already not just put on some much needed weight, she had also started to model herself on Bella, not wanting her heroine to be ashamed of her.

It was lucky that Lena had such good table manners Bella reflected approvingly. She knew all of Lena’s life story now, and about the mother who had been in service, married and then regretted that marriage. Bella’s own mother had of course been furious when Bella had called round to tell her what she had done, and Bella had half expected to have to face a row with her father. However, she hadn’t heard a word from him. Not that she would have paid any attention even if he had objected. Bella was enjoying having Lena living with her far more than she had expected.

Take last night, for instance, when they’d sat chatting after supper about the crèche, and in no time at all it had been nearly midnight and Bella hadn’t noticed the time passing, she’d enjoyed their conversation so much.

And then there was the coming baby. Bella’s family doctor had examined Lena and pronounced that both she and the baby were doing very well, although Lena needed to put on a little bit more weight, and Bella couldn’t help but be flattered by the way in which Lena turned to her for advice and approval.
Lena had hardly been able to believe it when Bella had managed to talk the owner of the beautiful coach-built pram they’d gone to look at into letting them have it even though it was really promised to someone else.

‘They’ll be so disappointed,’ Lena had argued guiltily, but Bella had stood firm and pointed out that Lena’s baby would be disappointed as well if there was no pram for it, and of course her argument had won the day.

‘Look, I know you’re tired,’ Bella told Lena once she had had her cup of tea, ‘so why don’t you stay here and wait for me whilst I pop back to Lewis’s and just make sure that they haven’t got another pair of rubber pants tucked away.’

‘Oh, Bella, no, you’ve spoiled me enough already,’ Lena protested, but Bella shook her head.

‘You’ll need at least two pairs – I know that from the crèche.’

One thing Bella had been scrupulous about was not ‘borrowing’ any of the baby equipment that rightly belonged to the crèche. She didn’t allow the girls who worked there to do that and that same rule had to apply to Lena as well.

Bella had been gone only five minutes and Lena was just pouring herself a second cup of tea when a familiar voice announced, ‘Lena, it is you, isn’t it?’

It was Gavin, the young apprentice tugboat pilot who had been so kind to Lena when she had had to join the trekkers. Lena blushed and then hung her head slightly, well aware of how much her pregnancy now showed.

‘Are you on your own?’ he asked, looking round.

‘No, I’m with a … a friend.’

He thought she meant she was with a man, Lena realised immediately. A mixture of guilt and determination filled her. It was no use, she was going to have to tell him the truth. She wanted to tell him the truth, she admitted. She hated being deceitful and pretending to be something that she wasn’t.

‘I’m not married on … or anything,’ she told him determinedly.

Gavin didn’t know what to say. It was obvious that she was pregnant and now with her comment he was beginning to wish that he’d simply walked past without speaking to her.

‘You’re shocked, I can see,’ Lena acknowledged. ‘And I dare say you think that I’m a bad lot who deserves to be in trouble.’

‘No I don’t,’ Gavin denied, realising as he spoke that it was true, and that although he was shocked he also felt sorry for her and oddly rather protective of her.

‘It was that soldier – Charlie – the one me auntie threw me out over. He’s the father. I don’t know why I ever let meself by taken in by him, I really don’t. I should have known he didn’t mean it when he said that he loved me, and that we were going to be married, especially with him being posh and me being like I am. But I thought he meant it, you see. I thought he did love me and that he’d come back for me and marry me, otherwise I’d never have let him—’ She broke off, looking ashamed and miserable, and very young. ‘You’ll think even less of me now than you did before, I dare say, and don’t say you didn’t because you did, I could tell.’

Gavin flushed uncomfortably.

‘It’s all right, I’m not saying that I blame you,’
Lena surprised him by saying, ‘especially not with the way I am now. Lied to me good and proper, he did, telling me it was me he wanted when all the time he was engaged to someone else. Married to her now he is, an’ all.’

She sounded so forlorn, more innocent and naïve than the experienced worldly sort he’d originally had her down as. He heard his own mother saying often enough that it was often decent girls who got themselves into trouble and not them as knew what was what. Lena certainly wasn’t coming across as someone who knew what was what right now. Her honesty had touched him and made him feel sympathetic towards her. More than that, it had made him feel protective towards her, he recognised, almost as though she was someone he ought to worry and concern himself about, like a member of his family. His feelings confused and alarmed him. He didn’t want to get involved with or feel sympathy for her. It was the war that was to blame, he comforted himself. It changed things, forging bonds between strangers in a way that could never happen in peacetime.

‘You’re all right, are you?’ he heard himself asking reluctantly. ‘I mean, you’ve got somewhere to live and that, and—’

‘Yes, I’m fine. No, really I am,’ Lena insisted when she saw the dubious look he was giving her. ‘Bella, that’s Charlie’s sister, has taken me in and she’s sorting me out with a job. Been ever so good to me, she has. A proper angel, she is and no mistake. Not like that brother of hers.’

‘Well, that’s all right then.’ Gavin exhaled in relief. He told himself that he was glad that any duty he
might have felt he had towards Lena was cancelled out by someone else stepping in to help her out, but at the same time he felt strangely reluctant to end their conversation and walk away from her.

She was so young and so very naïve, Gavin thought, but that wouldn’t protect her from people’s disapproval, and worse – even though it took two to create what she’d so obviously got in her belly. A woman’s guilt was plain for the whole world to see whilst a man could ignore and even deny his if he chose to do so.

‘I got thrown out of my job and my billet,’ Lena continued. Somehow he felt like an old friend and someone she could trust, which was just plain daft, seeing as she’d only seen him twice before. ‘And then Bella took me in. It was like a miracle had happened to me.’ Her eyes filled with tears.

Gavin had heard the warnings his own mother had given his sisters and he knew how angry she would be if one of them ended up in Lena’s situation, but he knew too that she wouldn’t turn her back on them or throw them out. But then Lena didn’t have a mother.

‘Bella’s been ever so good to me. A proper saint, and no mistake. I don’t know what I’d have done but for her. Ended up having to give up my baby, I expect, and I wouldn’t want that. I suppose you think that’s wrong of me, me not having a husband or a wedding ring or anything,’ she went on. ‘I suppose I’d think it myself if it was someone else and not me, but, well, I just know that I don’t want to give me baby away.

‘What about you and your schoolteacher?’ Lena asked him, remembering her manners.

‘She’s engaged now – to someone else.’

‘Oh, I’m ever so sorry.’ Lena’s face was scarlet.

Gavin shook his head. ‘There’s no need for you to be. We were never more than friends, despite what my grandmother liked to think.’

Dolly! ‘How is Dolly?’ Lena asked him more eagerly.

‘She’s fine, although she’s giving my mum a hard time.’

He broke off, stepping to one side of the table as Bella arrived.

She had seen Lena talking to the young man the minute she’d entered the restaurant, and she wondered protectively who he was and what he wanted. As Bella knew from her own experience, a pretty face attracted a lot of male attention.

Now, though, as Lena introduced them in a slightly flustered and anxious manner, Bella realised that ‘Gavin’ was the person Lena had mentioned when she had been telling her about her experiences with the trekkers, and remembering how much Lena, with her way of describing things, had made her laugh with her description of Dolly, Bella was actually smiling when she shook Gavin’s hand.

‘Gran will be put out that it’s me that’s seen you and not her,’ Gavin told Lena, and then to his own astonishment he heard himself saying brusquely, ‘Look, why don’t you give me your address? I know that Gran often talks about you and wonders how you are going on.’ It wasn’t exactly a lie, even it wasn’t exactly the truth either, Gavin assured himself.

‘Oh, yes.’ Lena’s face lit up but then she looked uncertainly at Bella, hesitating in case Bella disapproved of what Gavin was suggesting.