There was certainly only one way to find out.
She began to walk a little faster, the pram rocking smoothly before her, its momentum carrying her along, the springs creaking rhythmically in time to her quickened footsteps as she trod the painfully well-remembered route to West Ham.
* * *
Her determination took her as far as the top of the Bentons’ street and there it faltered.
Park Road, to a stranger’s eyes, was no different than fifty others in the district, but to one who knew it as Molly did it was unmistakably and achingly familiar. The sight of it brought a tumble of memories that constricted her throat and burned sharply behind her eyes. Her footsteps slowed, dragged. Several doors, including the Bentons’, stood open to the unexpected late afternoon warmth; windows were wide, their lacy curtains barely moving in the soft air. Curious eyes watched, one or two smiles and nods of recognition – and inquisitive interest – brought a stiff response from Molly. Her hands were clamped hard around the handle of the pram, as if her life depended upon their grip. By the time she reached the Bentons’ front gate her courage had left her and she knew with certainty that she was making a dreadful mistake. The thought of the words that could, in absence of charity, be used against her jangled already in her ears. But she had been seen, and recognized; it was unthinkable now to do anything but follow through her impulse.
She pushed the big pram through the gate and up the short path that led to the open door; she could see no one, but from the back of the house came the sound of voices, Nancy’s and Sarah’s.
Carefully she lifted Danny from the pram, brushed and straightened his dress and bonnet The baby stirred, squeaked, went back to sleep again. Molly stood within the familiar, shadowed doorway and strained her ears. Still just those two voices, Nancy’s and Sarah’s. Her fast-beating heart calmed a little; the women she could face. It came to her, surprisingly, that Jack’s voice had been the one she had suddenly dreaded to hear. She stepped quietly across the room where she had first opened her eyes after her illness and seen Harry teasing Nancy by the fire, and opened the door into the back room. From the adjoining scullery came a sudden clatter of crockery and Nancy’s voice, raised as Molly had never heard it before, edged raggedly with tears.
“Don’t keep on about it, Mam. Please. I’ve made my mind up. I’ve got to tell him. Got to.”
“I know that, lass. All I’m saying—” Sarah stopped in mid-sentence, her widening eyes fixed upon the small and uncertain figure who had appeared in the doorway.
Nancy turned.
“I’m sorry,” said Molly into the silence, “I didn’t mean to startle you. The front door was open—” The baby, clutched in her arms, mewed in discomfort; she had to make the physical effort to relax, to hold him less tightly.
Sarah’s eyes had gone straight to the child, but Nancy was looking at Molly, her thin face alight with astonishment and dawning delight. “Molly!” she said, and the welcome and warmth in that single word was the final release for Molly’s threatened tears. Unable to wipe them away she stood speechless and sniffing as with one accord the two women rushed to her, embracing, exclaiming, words tumbling disjointedly like marbles from a child’s pocket. Danny, infuriated by this unaccustomed disturbance, let rip an earsplitting shriek, and Molly found herself handing him into Sarah’s competent arms as naturally as if she did it every day. With her arms free she was able to return Nancy’s hugs and surreptitiously mop away the tears that were such a confusing compound of happiness and pain. Sarah was crooning softly to Danny, her quiet voice lifting and falling around the girls’ excited exclamations, her eyes intent upon the tiny face.
Nancy paused in her torrent of questions, none of which Molly had had opportunity to answer properly anyway, and looked at her mother and the child.
“Is it a girl or a boy?”
“A boy. Danny.”
“He’s beautiful. Beautiful! Look at the colour of his hair—”
“From my father.”
Sarah lifted her head and asked, almost steadily, “And his own father?”
Molly hesitated for only a fraction of a second. If the truth were to be told, it had to be now. “He has Harry’s eyes, I think,” she said simply. She heard the quick intake of Nancy’s breath, saw Sarah’s cradling arms gather the baby closer to her, and knew with relief that her instinct had been right.
After a moment’s quiet Nancy bustled to the table and picked up the teapot. “Sit down, Moll, for heaven’s sake. I’ll make a cup of tea.”
Molly sat carefully, her eyes still on Danny, unable yet quite to meet Sarah’s. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” she said awkwardly, “sorry I didn’t come. It was just – I couldn’t. I couldn’t.” She ducked her head.
“Don’t fret, lass. You’ve come now. That’s all that matters. Here—” with a small, regretful smile Sarah relinquished the little warm bundle. “It’s his Mam he wants. Make yourself comfortable while our Nancy makes the tea. Then we can talk. We’ve a lot to catch up on—”
Nancy appeared in the doorway with the empty teapot in her hand. “You’ve come back in time for the wedding,” she said happily. “You’ll come, won’t you?”
“Oh, Nancy, how lovely. Of course I’ll come. When is it? Where are you going to—?” She knew as she spoke that she had misunderstood. She stopped abruptly.
Nancy shook her head, set the pot on the table as if it were glass; colour had risen furiously into her face.
“Not me,” she said steadily, “Charley and Annie. They’re getting wed next month.”
Molly looked from one to the other. “Is something wrong?”
Sarah opened her mouth. Nancy said sharply, “Nothing that won’t wait till later.” She leaned forward and indicated the wedding ring on Molly’s hand. “We haven’t heard all of your news yet—”
The sound of Jack’s arrival, half an hour or so later, was completely covered by the sound of the women’s voices. He stood for a moment in the doorway unobserved, watching them. Molly saw him first; Nancy followed the direction of her startled and rather apprehensive gaze and thumped to her feet.
“Jack, oh Jack, look who’s come. It’s our Molly. And—” she hesitated “—and Danny.”
He seemed even bigger than Molly had remembered him, but his square, strong-boned face was the same, and his sun-streaked hair. Oddly, he did not smile, and though he spoke to Nancy his calm blue eyes held Molly’s.
“She’s right welcome,” he said quietly, “she knows it. And the little lad too.” Of all the younger Bentons Jack had retained most of his northern origins in his speech; his “right” still came out almost as “reet”. Harry, born mimic, had almost totally assimilated the speech of his adopted home. Only in fun had he dropped back to the broad accent of his childhood. The sound of it now stopped Molly’s heart for half a beat. She stood up. If he would only smile.
“Thank you,” she said.
His serious gaze shifted from her face to the bright head of the child and back again, his expression giving no clue to his thoughts. Molly stepped forward nervously, holding the baby tentatively towards him, unable completely to subdue the slight trembling of her arms. Jack was the undisputed head of the family; she needed, without absolutely understanding why, his approbation, his acceptance of herself and of her son. Always in the past she had been uncomfortably aware of a slight reserve between Harry’s eldest brother and herself, something akin to coolness that she could only interpret as disapproval, perhaps even dislike. A year ago her reaction had varied from mild defiance to an elaborate carelessness; now she knew that she needed his friendship. For a long second she stood with the child in her shaking, extended arms, unaware that her eyes spoke the plea that her tongue would not. Jack made no move to take the baby, and with sinking heart she was certain she had lost. Then he lifted an enormous hand, touched the bright soft head gently with a calloused and not very clean finger.
“Nay, lass,” he said, his voice thick, “I’ll not take him. Like
ly I’d drop him.” He smiled for the first time, the slow, lovely smile he took directly from Sarah. “I doubt he’d take kindly to that. Or you, either.”
Molly could not yet return his smile; there was another hurdle to be crossed first. “He’s Harry’s son,” she said, flatly, unemphatically, hearing the note of defiance in her own voice, unable to prevent it, willing her eyes to remain steady on his.
Jack nodded. “I guessed so.”
The front door banged.
“Charley!” said Nancy, happily.
“Good God Almighty! Little Moll!” Charley’s delighted grin over Jack’s wide shoulders had them all laughing; the odd tension of the preceding moments was broken. “Come on out here, girl, where I can get at you. Bloody scullery’s not big enough for me and Jack together.” He caught her, baby and all, in a bear hug. “Wait till I tell Annie. Just wait! She’ll throw a fit!”
In the hour that followed Molly was happier than she had been in months; but time flew and the baby whimpered, then yelled in good earnest.
“My bedroom,” said Sarah, expertly divining the reason for his indignation. “You can feed him there in comfort.”
Edward, who had come in some minutes before and who was eyeing Danny with a mixture of fascination and distrust asked, “Why’s it go to eat in the bedroom?” and Molly, as she climbed the stairs, heard his small, plaintive voice behind her, “but why does the baby have its tea in the bedroom? Can I have my tea in the bedroom? When, Mam? When can I—?”
When she returned to the kitchen some little while later she glanced a little guiltily at the clock, then said, “I really must go. Sam will be worried.”
Jack stirred in his chair.
“I’ll walk with you,” said Nancy quickly, “I can bus back. It isn’t late.”
“Why don’t we all go?” Charley asked cheerfully, but he was quelled by a meaning look from his mother.
“You’ll come again soon?” Sarah asked as she kissed Molly’s cheek.
Molly nodded. “I promise. You’ll get tired of seeing me, that you will.”
Charley was looking down at the tiny, milky scrap in the pram, an expression of wonder on his face. “Hell fire,” he said quietly, talking almost to himself, “Annie and me could have one like that by this time next year.”
“Then I’d advise you both to get as much sleep as possible before it happens,” Molly said drily, “for you’ll certainly get none afterwards.”
“Annie wants six,” Charley said, thoughtfully.
“One at a time, I hope!” Molly said, and then she and Nancy left the others still laughing; but the smile soon died from Nancy’s face leaving it, as before, strained and unhappy-looking.
The big pram bounced in front of them; Danny, replete, was asleep. Molly stayed quiet, waiting for her friend to speak, but for some time she did not and they walked through the cooling streets in silence. Yet as they walked both were aware of the renewal of their old companionship, of the bond between them that past events might have strained but had certainly not broken. The light was failing rapidly now, though the sky to the west above darkly silhouetted rooftops and chimneys was washed with the faint rose-gold of the aftermath of sunset. As they passed a piece of desolate-looking waste ground across which, despite the deepening dusk, children still ran and called, their voices echoing along the canyons of the surrounding streets, Nancy said abruptly, “There was a bonfire here on Mafeking Night. And fireworks.”
“Did you come?”
“Yes. With Charley and Annie. And – Joe.” Molly did not miss the infinitesimal hesitation before she spoke the name. “We didn’t really want to go at first, but the others talked us into it – you know what Annie is – and they were right. I was glad afterwards, that we went. It would have been a shame to miss it. I’ve never seen anything like it – people were singing and dancing in the streets, there were bonfires on every corner. It’s a wonder London didn’t burn down. The greatest celebration ever held, so they say.”
A few more steps in silence. Molly considered her next words carefully and decided that she could be nothing but blunt.
“How is Joey? Do you still see him?”
In the short pause before the other girl answered, their footsteps rang loud on the grimy pavements. “Yes, I still see him. He’s fine. He’ll be going with his brother soon, out to Africa. As a missionary. And schoolteacher.”
The air was turning chilly; Molly fussed Danny a little, pulling the blanket up, tucking his tiny hand beneath it, lifting the hood slightly to protect him from the night air. House doors were shut now, and windows bloomed yellow light. As they passed one Molly glanced at her companion’s face. Nancy was staring ahead of her with the lost look of an unhappy child.
“Nancy, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“Joe’s asked me to marry him. He wants me to go with him to Africa.” It was said quite flatly.
Molly stared. “What? But I thought—”
“I said no.” Nancy continued, as if Molly had not spoken. “But he doesn’t understand. He thinks – he’s certain that I’ll change my mind. And I won’t. I can’t. But he won’t listen, won’t believe it. Oh, God, I didn’t want this. I didn’t! I just wanted us to be friends—” The edge that Molly had heard in her voice when she had been talking to Sarah was back, wrung with unhappiness, a breath from tears. They turned the corner into the long road that led to Linsey Grove, and their pace slowed.
“I can’t say I understand any better than Joey does,” Molly said at last, with honesty, “I would have said that you loved him, that you wanted to marry him—”
“I do!” It was a cry from the heart.
“Then for heaven’s sake—?”
“I can’t! That’s all there is to it. I can’t. Oh, it’s my own fault, I know. I should never have let things go this far. I tried not to. But I couldn’t help it. I love him. I didn’t mean to, but I do. I couldn’t stop myself.”
Molly was close to exasperation. “Why on earth should you try? Nancy, you aren’t making any sense. Unless it’s that you don’t want to leave home, go to Africa – I can understand that—” But Nancy was shaking her head vehemently. “Well, what, then? Do you mean that you think that Joey doesn’t love you?”
Nancy took a deep, wretched breath. “He loves me. He says he does, and I believe him. Oh, not – wildly, I know that. It isn’t in his nature. But he does love me.”
“Well, then—”
It took a visible effort for Nancy to calm herself, but when she spoke her voice was composed again. “I told you. Joey wants to be – is – a missionary, a teacher. He is dedicated to that. He is so sure, so certain. He sees things in black and white, there are no shades in between. There is good and there is bad. He holds every soul responsible for his own actions, and weakness, to Joe, is the same as wickedness; there are no excuses for either.” She shrugged, helplessly. “I can’t marry him. It would be dishonest. I can’t.”
They had turned the corner of Linsey Grove. Molly stopped walking so suddenly that Danny woke and stirred protestingly.
“Holy Mary!” Molly’s voice held the vehemence of disbelief. “What are you talking about? You’re surely not trying to tell me that you won’t marry Joey Taylor because you don’t think you’re good enough for him? Saints above, Nancy, don’t be ridiculous.” Her voice had risen, disturbing the baby. “Be still,” she said to him, “no one’s talking to you.”
Nancy was shaking her head; in the gleam of lamplight Molly could see the shine of tears.
“You’re crazy,” Molly continued. “The man’s known you long enough. Don’t you think he’s able to judge? He says he loves you. You love him. Isn’t that enough?” Awful echoes of herself and Harry; the thought roughened her voice. “If you ask me about who’s good enough for who, I’d say the boot’s on the other foot entirely. If Joey Taylor gets you he’ll be a lucky man, and I’ll be the first to tell him so.”
There was an odd little silence. “Oh, Molly,” said Nancy, her voi
ce shaking.
Molly looked at her, her heart sinking at the tone of those two simple words. “Tell me,” she said very quietly, “Tell me what you haven’t told Joe. Perhaps it will help.”
“Nothing will help. Nothing. But I’ll tell you anyway. You should know.” Nancy was leaning into the deep shadows of a dusty privet hedge. A little way down the road the light from the front door of number twenty-six streamed down the path and touched the gate, a bright, waiting finger. A horse and cart clopped sedately across the end of the road and was gone; a dog barked.
“Edward,” said Nancy in a clear, tired voice, “isn’t my brother. He’s my son.”
There was no disguising the shock. Molly stared blankly at the pale blur that was Nancy’s face. “Your son? But – he can’t be—”
“He is.” The figure beside her was rigid, the voice expressionless. “He’s the reason we left the north, came to London. Can you imagine the tongues? Not even Mam could face them, strong as she is. Right friendly were our neighbours—” bitterly she broadened her accent, “—who’d ’a thowt it, eh? A gradely lass like ower Nance. Ee, I feel reet sorry fer them Bentons—”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
Molly chewed her lip. The splash of light on the pavement outside number twenty-six broadened and brightened as the door was opened. A shadow danced, and footsteps sounded on the tiled path to the accompaniment of a quickly suppressed cough.
Faintly came Ellen’s voice, sharp and impatient. “What on earth do you think you’re doing now? Sam? Sammy! Come back in here at once. You’ll catch your death.”
“Just a breath of air, th-that’s all.” Sam’s voice was weary. The two girls saw his thin, stooped figure appear, leaning on the gate.
“If you’re looking for your precious Molly,” said his mother’s voice with relentless hostility, “then you’re wasting your time, I’ll tell you that for nothing. She’ll be back when she feels like it and not before. She’ll not give you a thought until she wants something.”
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