Molly's War

by Maggie Hope

  ‘All right, I’ll come with you there,’ he said. ‘You can give me your address on the way. Or, better still, I’ll meet you tomorrow morning at the factory gate and we can go back to Eden Hope, how’s that?’

  ‘No, I can’t. I’ll be altogether too tired, I will honestly. No, I’ll have to go home myself in the morning.’

  Jackson said nothing. He washed and finished dressing and was ready when she was. But the smile had left his eyes. He kept glancing at her with a puzzled expression which gradually hardened into resolve.

  As they walked away from the hotel he took her arm and put it through his but the closeness of before was missing and Molly was acutely and miserably aware of it. They caught the Darlington bus which wound its way through the coastal villages before turning inland and sat close together, he holding her hand, saying little. He did not ask for her address again, but simply watched her with that questioning look.

  The bus stop was about a quarter of a mile from the factory and they got off together and walked the rest of the way. Molly was more than an hour early for her shift so they found a cafe and drank weak tea and ate toasted teacake with plum jam. No butter, of course.

  ‘I’ll pick you up tomorrow,’ said Jackson in a voice that brooked no argument. ‘And I will go home with you. We’ll tell your battleaxe of a landlady that we’re going to be married next week before I go back to duty. If she says anything, anything at all, you’ll come back to Eden Hope with me. Now, is that understood?’

  Molly nodded, looking down at the half-eaten teacake on her plate. She was going to have to tell him, she thought.

  Chapter Thirty

  ‘WE CAN’T, YOU see,’ said Molly, thinking: God forgive me, I’m lying through my teeth. ‘Dora, that’s my landlady, has gone to see her sister. So we might as well just go to Eden Hope. Did you tell your mam and dad?’

  ‘Of course I did. And I told them we’d be coming to see them. I thought tomorrow, but we can go today. Did you ask for next week off work?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Molly. The morning was bright and sharp with that touch of frost that seems to clear the air so that the trees and bushes stood out against the pale blue sky. Strangely Molly felt not a bit tired even though she had worked all night, concentrating on the straight seams as she sewed the stiff cloth together into powder bags. She flexed her fingers at the thought; they were stiff and slightly painful.

  The management of the factory was understanding, that was one good thing. Especially if you were marrying a member of the fighting forces. And in any case, she was owed the time off. Molly glanced up at Jackson and her heart melted within her. She couldn’t lose him now, she told herself, forcing down the panic which threatened to rise and overwhelm her. No, she couldn’t. But now was not the time to tell him about Beth.

  Jackson looked down at her, took her hand, and they began walking towards the bus stop for Bishop Auckland.

  ‘Don’t look so worried, my love, nothing is going to go wrong this time. I won’t let it, I love you too much. Howay now, smile. I promise I won’t lose you again.’

  Molly smiled, enveloped in his love. Surely it was too strong for any revelation to break it? She would tell him tomorrow, she resolved. Yes, she couldn’t marry him without confessing. And when he saw Beth he would be captivated by the baby, of course he would. She was so beautiful, he couldn’t fail to be.

  On the bus they sat close together, Molly leaning on Jackson’s shoulder.

  ‘That’s right, pet,’ he said. ‘You have a snooze, you must be tired out. This afternoon you can have a couple of hours while I go to see the registrar about a special licence. We have arrangements to make.’

  ‘I must go back to Ferryhill,’ she said quickly. ‘For clean clothes if nothing else.’

  He frowned. Their time together was so short, he begrudged any of it being spent apart. ‘Righto,’ he said, ‘of course. And I’ll see you tomorrow morning and soon it will be the weekend and we’ll be together.’

  *

  Molly walked up the yard of the Morleys’ house.

  ‘Come away in, love,’ Maggie cried. ‘I’ll soon knock you up a bite of breakfast. And we’ve got a surprise for you … look who’s here!’ There, rising from the rocking chair by the fire, was Harry. He held out his arms and Molly went to him with a surge of delight and affection. He lifted her off her feet and swung her in the air.

  ‘Now then, sis,’ he cried. ‘Where the heck have you been this time? I tell you, I can’t take my eyes off you in case you disappear again!’

  ‘Not any more,’ said Jackson firmly, coming up behind Molly as her brother put her back on her feet and clapping his friend on the shoulder. ‘You made it back then, mate,’ he said. ‘How much leave have you? A week?’

  Harry pulled a face. ‘No such luck,’ he said. ‘Seventy-two hours, that’s all.’

  ‘Still you’ll be here for the wedding. I’m going down to Bishop for the special licence today. Fancy coming with me? We haven’t a lot of time to waste.’ Jackson glanced at the marble clock which still stood on the mantelpiece though Molly noticed that Maggie’s own was keeping good time now. She must have had it mended.

  Harry followed the glance and grinned at Molly. ‘You’ve still got the old clock, eh? Still going an’ all.’

  ‘Of course I still have it. It’s all we’ve got left from the old house.’

  Harry sobered for a minute. ‘Aye,’ he said. Then he smiled the lop-sided smile which was so like his father’s.

  ‘Well, we have to look forward now, haven’t we? Soon you and Jackson will have a place of your own. When this flaming war is over, eh?’

  ‘Time you settled down, Harry,’ said Maggie. ‘Have you not met a nice lass yet?’

  ‘Lots of ’em.’ He grinned and felt in the pocket of his battledress. ‘By the way, here’s me ration coupon. It’s for three days.’

  ‘Eeh, thanks, lad. I can’t deny it’ll come in handy.’

  Molly listened with half an ear to the talk around her. Jackson was discussing the course of the war with Frank, who was wondering when the Americans would come in: ‘For they will, late, just as they did the last time,’ his father said.

  ‘If only,’ said Molly, surprising herself. She hadn’t realised she was thinking aloud.

  ‘They will,’ Jackson insisted. ‘But if they don’t, what the heck? We’ve been on our own, backs against the wall, before now and come through. We can do it again, don’t you worry.’ And everyone nodded agreement.

  Molly hadn’t been thinking about the war, she had other things to worry about. By, she thought, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes wearily for a few seconds, if it wasn’t for Beth I would be so happy, I’d be out of my mind. With Jackson home, and Harry. Dear Lord, what was she thinking of … if it wasn’t for Beth? What sort of depraved mother was she even to think such a terrible thing? Her lovely, lovely Beth! Molly sighed and tears pricked the back of her eyelids.

  ‘Come on, love,’ said Jackson, taking her hand and pulling her to her feet, ‘I think you’d best go and lie down for a couple of hours. I have to go into Bishop anyway, there’s arrangements to make.’

  ‘No, I’ll go back to Ferryhill. I have things to see to as well, you know.’

  ‘You’re going to eat this first, though, aren’t you?’ asked Maggie. She had a pan of scrambled dried eggs in her hand; Frank was toasting bread before the bars of the grate.

  ‘Thank you,’ Molly whispered. They were so kind. Her eyes were wet with unshed tears.

  ‘Sit down at the table, lass,’ said Maggie. ‘You’ll feel better when you’ve got this inside you. You’re tired, that’s all. It’s all been a bit much for you.’

  Later, on the bus to Ferryhill, Molly felt almost too tired to worry about the situation at all. She dozed off time and time again, woke up with a start whenever the bus slowed to a halt at a bus stop, dozed off again when it lumbered into motion once again. When it turned into the market place at Ferryhill, she woke to hear the c
onductor calling, ‘Terminus! Everybody off!’ At least she couldn’t go past her stop.

  ‘What sort of a time is this to be coming home, that’s what I want to know?’

  Dora was sitting at the table with Beth in her arms, feeding the baby with a bottle in one hand and eating her own meal with the other.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dora, really I am. I know I shouldn’t have left you with Beth. I wouldn’t do it with anyone else but I know I can trust you with her. But, oh, when I saw Jackson again I couldn’t believe it, and you know how difficult it is to catch a bus these days. The time simply flew by –’

  The baby was smiling at her, waving her fists in the air with excitement, and Molly’s heart melted. How could she have gone all day yesterday without seeing her baby? She held out her arms and took her, cuddled her in, kissed the top of her head. Dora watched, unsmiling.

  ‘Give me her back, will you? You’ll make her sick, squeezing her like that. And if she doesn’t finish her feed, she’ll be fretful for the rest of the day.’

  ‘I’ll give it her, will I? Then you can eat your own meal in peace.’

  ‘Hmmm. You never thought about how I was managing when you didn’t come home, did you?’ said Dora, but she didn’t really sound angry. ‘Oh, go on then, take her. I tell you, the poor bairn doesn’t know who’s her mammy. You don’t, do you, my petal?’ Her voice changed to a warm and loving tone as she spoke to the baby. And Beth looked at her gravely as she handed over the bottle to Molly. The child opened her mouth to receive the teat and recommenced the serious business of sucking.

  Dora watched for a second or two and then resumed eating her own meal. ‘I suppose you’ll have to go to bed now an’ all,’ she said. ‘I reckon you must be dead tired.’

  ‘I am. But I’ll stay up and watch Beth while you go to the shop, if you like.’

  ‘Mind, that’s blooming good of you,’ said Dora, casting her a sarcastic glance. But Molly could see she wasn’t anything like as angry as she had expected her to be.

  Dora laid Beth down and went out to the shops. Molly bent over the baby, stroked the soft, downy cheek with a forefinger, smoothed the silky hair back from her forehead. By, she was a bonny bairn, she was. The baby stirred, whimpered slightly, and it was all the excuse Molly needed to pick her up, wrap a shawl round her and sit down in the rocking chair, cuddling her in. Beth slept on, a sweet, heavy bundle on her arm. She was growing fast, no longer a very tiny baby. Her eyelashes curled down on to her cheeks, dark and becoming thick. A beauty she would be, Molly thought proudly.

  ‘I won’t leave you, petal, not for any man in the world,’ she whispered. And at the same time another voice was saying in her head, But what about Jackson?

  ‘Eeh, Molly, put the bairn down, will you? She’ll be sore with so much handling and then she won’t sleep the night.’

  Dora had come in without Molly even noticing. She came swiftly over to the rocking chair and took Beth from her; laid her back in the pram that was still used as a downstairs cot.

  ‘Go on to bed, lass, you’ll be no good for work the night if you don’t get some sleep at least.’

  Molly went upstairs feeling so tired she was past thinking any more about Jackson or Beth. She would be able to think better, she thought, when she had a clearer head. But when she woke it was with a headache and leaden limbs. Now she had to tell Dora she was getting married on Saturday.

  ‘Saturday? Did you say Saturday?’ Dora’s voice rose. She stared at Molly with a shocked expression.

  ‘Yes. Jackson was applying for a special licence today and he’ll get one, him being a soldier and going back on duty.’

  ‘An’ what about me? What about this canny bairn?’

  ‘I’ll tell him, Dora. It’ll be all right, I’m sure it will. Anyway, he’ll be going off to North Africa won’t he? That’s where they’re fighting now. Goodness only knows when he’ll come back.’

  Molly was looking down at her plate as she spoke, overcome almost by the prospect of Jackson’s going away again. So she didn’t realise that Dora was crying until she raised her head. Molly dropped her knife and fork and rushed over to the other woman.

  ‘Oh, Dora, are you worried you won’t see Beth any more? You will, I promise. Of course you will. I’ll never forget what you did, you were such a friend when I needed one.’ She put an arm around Dora’s shoulders and hugged her.

  ‘Aye, you say that now, an’ you mean it, I know. But you’ll take the poor little mite away and you’ll forget all about bringing her back to see me, I know what it’ll be like. I’ll be losing another daughter, won’t I?’

  Dora sniffed, pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose. She shrugged off Molly’s arm and squared her shoulders.

  ‘Oh, don’t mind me, you’ll go off with your soldier lad and he’ll forgive you and keep the bairn. You’re a bonny lass, you know. You’ll look at him with those big brown eyes and he won’t be able to help himself, that’s the top and the bottom of it all.’

  No matter what Molly said Dora wasn’t to be persuaded that she wouldn’t be forgotten. In the end Molly had to leave her to get ready for work.

  Molly and Jackson were married at the Register Office at Bishop Auckland. It was ten o’clock in the morning, a cold, damp day when the mist hung about so that the Methodist Chapel just along the road was partially obscured by it. She and Dora came in on the train without Beth, who had been left with a neighbour for a couple of hours.

  At first Dora had refused to come, saying she couldn’t leave the baby. And Molly had misgivings about her coming, too, dreading that she would say something to Jackson before she herself got a chance to explain about her little daughter.

  She would have liked to have asked Vi to come to the wedding too. But Vi would almost certainly give her secret away to Jackson in all innocence. In fact when Molly thought of Vi she felt guilty; she had seen her only twice since she left the home, the last time weeks ago. But she dare not ask her to the wedding.

  For she had not as yet told him. Throughout the last couple of days before the wedding she had set out to see him with every intention of telling him, but each time when it came to it she had not.

  ‘You dither on much longer, my girl,’ Dora remarked grimly, ‘and you will really be in trouble. It’s not right, marrying a chap and keeping a secret like that from him. It’s bound to come out, you mark my words.’

  But she was not angry or woebegone as she had been when Jackson first came back. Most of the time she had a faraway look in her eyes, or Molly would look up suddenly and find Dora gazing speculatively at her. She did not complain when Molly spent time with Jackson but looked after Beth as though she were her own. In fact, Molly sometimes had the uncomfortable thought that Dora did think of Beth as her own.

  ‘I could adopt the bairn,’ she had said abruptly the night before the wedding. ‘That would be an answer, wouldn’t it?’

  Molly was horrified. ‘No, of course you couldn’t!’ she cried. ‘No, Dora really, everything will be fine, you’ll see.’

  In her heart Molly had grave doubts about everything being fine. But it just had to be, she told herself fiercely. And when she was with Jackson he was so loving towards her she began to believe it would be.

  ‘I’ll do anything for you, my love,’ he’d whispered in her ear. ‘Anything at all.’ And Molly was beginning to believe it.

  So she walked along Newgate Street towards the Register Office, past the Chapel where another wedding was in progress. She could hear the choir singing Charles Wesley’s great hymn ‘Love Divine All Loves Excelling’ and knew it was a wedding. A chapel wedding, that was what she had always dreamed of, Molly thought with only a faint twinge of regret. The important thing was to marry the one you loved, she told herself. And she loved Jackson. Oh, yes, she did.

  He was waiting for her on the pavement outside the office, he and Harry. They kissed and made introductions, and Harry looked sadly at Mona’s mother who glanced at him and looked away rapidly at a couple wa
lking past on the opposite side of the road, then up the road, anywhere but at him. Harry had forced himself to smile, to laugh at something Frank said, and then they had all gone into the Register Office.

  The ceremony was short, the office bare and dingily brown, and they were outside on the pavement again before Molly was properly aware she was at last married to Jackson. And she still hadn’t told him about Beth.

  Jackson had booked a photographer from Taylor’s in Newgate Street and they stood together for the wedding photographs. But the photographer didn’t take long; the other wedding party was emerging from the Chapel and he rushed along to it. A grand wedding it was, Molly could tell. The guests were laughing and throwing confetti which she could see was made up of chopped bits of newspaper for of course confetti was not available because of the war effort.

  Harry had brought some too and Molly’s heart swelled with affection for him, her brother in his red paratrooper’s beret and khaki battledress. God keep him safe.

  ‘All right, sweetheart?’ Jackson had hold of Molly’s arm and was bending down to whisper in her ear. He had noticed the look of anxiety which had flashed across her face as she studied Harry. Then they were laughing and trying to dodge as he threw the newspaper confetti.

  They were going to the Wear Valley Hotel for a celebratory drink and walked along the road in a small group, the men with late roses from Frank’s garden in their buttonholes and Molly with a spray of carnations from Hardisty’s flower shop. The wedding party were moving away from the Chapel too, she saw, going towards the schoolroom where no doubt there was a spread from the Co-operative Store acquired with the special food points allowed for weddings and funerals.

  At the Wear Valley Hotel they paused and Dora stepped away from them. Molly watched her; unconsciously her grip tightened on Jackson’s arm so that he looked down at her, momentarily surprised.

  ‘I’d best be getting back home,’ said Dora.

  ‘Won’t you stay and have a drink first?’ Jackson asked politely. He didn’t press her, though, still thinking she must be something of a termagant after what Molly had said about her.