by Anna Jacobs
The house in Packman Alley looked forlorn, somehow. Two women standing in the doorway of one of the other houses stopped talking to stare at Tess, then one called, ‘Sorry about your mum, love.’
‘Thank you.’
Sergeant Deemer had given Nick the key and Tess took it out of his hand to open the door. They followed her inside and shut the world out.
‘Where do you want to start?’ Jo asked.
‘The hiding place is upstairs. I won’t be more than a couple of minutes. I’ll call out if they’ve found it.’
She came down shortly afterwards carrying a package. ‘They hadn’t found it.’
‘Where was it?’ Nick asked.
‘In a false panel under the windowsill. You’d never have guessed it was there, it was so cleverly done.’ She was clutching it to herself. ‘Would you mind if I went back upstairs to read this on my own?’
‘Not at all.’
When she’d gone, they looked at one another. ‘I don’t know whether to hope she goes to live with her father or not,’ Jo confessed. ‘I don’t want her to feel obliged to if she doesn’t take to him.’
‘I think she should. He seems nice and prepared to love her. And if we’re still in England, she can always come back to us if she’s unhappy with him.’
‘You are such a kind, caring man.’
He smiled and pulled her to him for a kiss. ‘I’ll always help your cousin, but it’s you I care about most of all. I love you so much, Jo. And I can’t wait to marry you.’
She smiled at him with that cheeky expression he loved. ‘Yes, but I haven’t had a proper proposal yet, have I?’
That startled him for a moment or two, then he saw the mischief in her eyes, so plonked himself down on one knee and took her hand, trying to look lost in love. ‘Dearest Jo—’
She tugged at his hand. ‘Get up, you fool. I was only teasing you.’
‘No, I like it down here. And I want to do this properly.’ All the mischief suddenly vanished and he gave her such a loving look, she could hardly breathe.
‘Jo, darling, I love you very much and I can’t wait to marry you, either.’
Only then did he stand up and kiss her till the world started spinning and she had to clutch him. When he pulled away, she dragged him back by his shirt front and kissed him again.
They both said the same thing at the same time, ‘Not long till our wedding now.’
Then they didn’t say anything till Tess came back to join them, just stood close together, holding hands.
Upstairs, Tess carefully opened the tin box and took out the wallet with the money in it and found a letter underneath it, on top of her birth certificate. The certificate said ‘Father – John Jones, deceased’.
‘You should have told me the truth,’ she whispered aloud, then opened her mother’s letter. ‘And you should at least have put him on my birth certificate, Mam.’ She began to read.
My dearest Tess,
If you’re reading this, I’ll be dead. I’ve known for a while that something was wrong, and I’ve been in such bad pain, so don’t grieve for me too much. We all have to die.
I ought to have told you before now that your father is still alive. He’s called Gregory Litten and he lives in Wiltshire. He has a large house and land – and he never told me he was married, not in all the wonderful months we were together. I have never been able to forgive him for that.
However, you will need someone after I’m gone, so I’ve written him a letter and asked Mr Lloyd to let him know when I die. I think Gregory will look after you. He was a decent fellow in most things, even if he did deceive both me and his wife.
I’ve never understood how a man can say he loves two women, as he did, because I’ve only ever been able to love one man.
If he wants you, go to him. He’ll keep you safe from Rathley.
I have always loved you, never regretted having you.
All my love,
Mam
PS If he doesn’t want you, I think your cousin from Australia will look after you.
The PS was hastily scrawled at the end in pencil. The rest was written in her mother’s beautiful copperplate handwriting in ink.
Tess raised the letter to her lips and kissed it. ‘He wants me, Mam, so I’ll go to him as you ask.’
She wept for a little while, then made herself stop and count the money. Two hundred and six pounds! And there was a bankbook with more in it, a lot more. She couldn’t believe her mother had saved that much.
In the end she scrubbed her eyes, tidied her hair and went down to tell her cousin that she’d decided to go to her father, not only because it was what her mother had wanted but because he seemed like a really nice person.
Epilogue
N ick and Jo had expected to have a very quiet wedding with only Todd Selby and Charlie Willcox as witnesses. But the two men brought their wives along and Tess couldn’t be left out. She brought her father.
When they said the words that made them man and wife, Jo’s heart overflowed with joy and from the expression on Nick’s face, he felt the same.
She saw that Charlie’s eyes were suspiciously bright and he blew his nose rather loudly. His wife gave him a nudge with her elbow.
Once he’d finished blowing his nose, he grinned at the newlyweds. ‘I’ve booked a room and a meal at the hotel. A wedding is something to celebrate.’ He turned to Tess and added, ‘And so is having a new father.’
‘What he hasn’t said,’ Todd added, ‘is that he’s invited a few more people to the celebration.’
Charlie shrugged. ‘We need a party to cheer us all up.’
Jo didn’t care who came to celebrate with them. She was married to Nick, and that was all that mattered. She exchanged happy glances with him. It was good to celebrate with friends, but it would be even better when they were alone together, and when they could set about making a good life together here in the valley.
She was quite sure it would be a happy life in anything that depended on them and their love.
Inside the hotel, Tess stayed very close to her father, feeling shy, worried at how people would react to her presence. For once, however, she was smiled at by the other guests, spoken to kindly, treated in a way she’d always envied when she watched other people.
At one point during the meal, her father said, ‘By the way, I can arrange for Big Donny to come and live on the farm I own and rent out. I think he’ll be happy helping with the animals, don’t you?’
Tess looked at him, already feeling love creeping into her heart. He had only to find out she wanted something to get it for her. Her new clothes were pretty and suitable for a sixteen-year-old, and Donny would be safe. ‘That would be wonderful. He does his best but he’s rather timid really, unless someone upsets him.’
‘That’s settled, then.’
In another corner, Charlie and the other councillors had temporarily forgotten that this was a wedding gathering and were speaking in low voices about the next council meeting and planning how to make progress in getting rid of the slums at Backshaw Moss.
‘We’ll do it,’ Leah said, and they all nodded.
Further up the hill, Wilf was sharing a pot of tea with Mrs Morton, having just finished the last of the urgent repairs for her.
‘I don’t know what to do about Enid,’ he confessed. ‘She seems only to want to stay at home and look after the children.’
‘The hard times have affected her, as they have many people. You’ll have to bring her to tea again. Maybe if she gets used to coming here, she’ll relax a little. You have.’
He grinned. ‘Strange how comfortable I feel with you these days.’
‘And I with you.’
‘Well, go on. What’s the latest gossip?’
‘They say Mrs Rathley has been a much happier woman since her husband was arrested.’
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘And I hear that our local driving instructor and the Australian lass are getting married today.�
��
‘Yes, I heard that, too. You can’t keep anything secret in this town, can you? I don’t really know them, but I like to see people in love, whoever they are.’
‘No, you can’t often keep secrets. I heard two women talking about them in the shop. I hope they’ll be very happy. Later on someone else pointed them out to me in the street. You’d think a person from Australia was a strange new animal from the way she talked. But I must say, they looked like an old married couple already.’
In Birch End that evening, Charlie poured himself the small nightly glass of sherry to which he was becoming addicted and sat down to chat to his wife.
‘It was a good wedding, wasn’t it?’
‘Delightful.’
‘And Wilf will be making a start on the walls of your studio next week.’
‘Good. And what will you be getting up to next, Charlie Willcox?’
He grinned at her. ‘Who knows? But times are getting slowly better and now that I’m on the council I want to help our valley prosper again.’
‘It won’t be easy going.’
‘But it’ll be very worthwhile.’ He raised his glass. ‘To the Valley: Rivenshaw, Birch End and Ellindale. May all of us who live here prosper.’
She yawned and stretched. ‘And while we’re all waiting to prosper, your unborn child and wife need their sleep.’
He chuckled, set the glass down and went up to bed with her. It took him a while to get to sleep as he reviewed the events of the last few weeks. It had all ended happily.
Our valley will prosper again, he thought as he grew drowsy and fell asleep with a smile on his face.
Get A WIDOW’S COURAGE, the next book in the uplifting Birch End Saga, here
My great-grandfather Charles Wild was from a middle-class family, and was the father of my beloved granddad Fred. Family stories say that Charles emigrated to the United States and died there, then his wife and children returned to the UK. I’m not sure about that. Certainly one of my grandfather’s brothers was born there. The children of Charles Wild seem to have scattered and I was surprised to find how many there were. I only knew about my grandfather, his brother Smith who had been in the army and never married, and his sister Annie, who also never married and lived with her brother Smith. I was surprised when I found out about the others. How quickly family history vanishes!
My great-grandfather Frank Gibson was from a working-class family and my great-grandmother married him against her own family’s wishes. I remember her because she didn’t die until I was four, and we went to her house at least one Sunday a month. I don’t remember ever meeting Frank, but judging by family photos it’s from him and his wife that my sister and I got our baby faces. I used to regret looking young for my age, now I’m delighted about it!
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Table of Contents
Cover
Contents
Also by Anna Jacobs
Title Page
Copyright
Dear readers …
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue