‘Don’t be silly,’ Melissa snapped. ‘How can she ever get back papers that don’t exist? No wonder she claims that the alleged son of our darling late brother is lost. She’s a confidence trickster, hell-bent on defrauding us. Fortunately, Hugh and I made a point of not revealing the solicitor’s name.’
‘Well, I did,’ Prue said with a big grin. ‘Someone needed to, and since you two were busily condemning her for all manner of atrocities, finding her guilty without trial, I stepped in to help.’
‘You bloody idiot,’ said Melissa, hot with anger. ‘Why do you never think things through properly? Don’t you realise our family is nowhere near as wealthy as we were before the war, so we have to hang on to every penny we’ve got?’
‘Oh, really?’ Prue said with a scornful smile. ‘And there was me thinking you’d hopped off to live in London just so you could more regularly visit Harrods to indulge yourself using your allowance.’
‘Damn you, I am entitled to some fun, and more importantly, my children deserve their heritage to remain safe, particularly Ross.’ Glancing round, she spotted her small son splashing about in a puddle, getting himself soaking wet. ‘Oh no, the stupid boy.’
Prue laughed. ‘He’s just having fun.’
Melissa wagged a furious finger inches from her sister’s face. ‘I warn you that if Fairhurst hands over any money to that chit of a girl, this family will be in serious difficulties, which will be all your fault. And we all know what a defiant little idiot you are.’ Spinning around in her high heels she almost tripped over a row of rhubarb. Then grabbing her son by the collar, she dragged him into the house.
‘What an unfeeling family I have,’ Prue said with a sigh to the hens as she began to count them. She did this each evening to make sure none had gone missing, been attacked by a fox or become lost as they happily meandered about the farm. They needed to be safe, as did everyone in this frightening world. Her heart went out to poor Brenda if she really had lost her son. As a mother herself, why couldn’t Melissa feel some sympathy for her too? There were times when it felt as if her sister was worse than a fox, always keen to bite someone.
Prue had to admit that she did sometimes make hasty decisions, generally out of affection and sympathy, or to stubbornly prove she could please herself as to what she did in life. Which was perhaps why she’d rushed into marriage without proper thought.
Watching the hens line up to pop into the hen hut, the memory of how she first met Cecil Weston came back to her. It was at a dance at the local co-operative rooms. He was tall with dark, wavy hair, really quite good looking. ‘He’s a bit of all right,’ she’d said to her friend. Something in the way he’d looked at her had lit a spark within her and she’d happily slipped into his arms to dance the entire evening with him. After that they would secretly meet to go for walks and kiss in the woodlands, and being young and inexperienced, Prue had loved the attention he was giving her. Within weeks he was called up, and freely admitted he felt filled with fear.
‘Will you write to me every day?’
‘Of course,’ Prue promised.
He’d gladly agreed to come but it proved to be a total disaster. Her father had instantly set about questioning him about his income, family and place in society, making it very clear he was unimpressed to discover he was a mere mechanic at a local factory. ‘So you’re working class,’ Sir Randolph had dismissively remarked. Not at all the kind of husband with money and high ranking he’d planned for Prue to marry.
As they walked out together later that afternoon, she’d apologised to Cecil for her father’s attitude. Smiling, he’d pulled her into his arms and kissed her with even greater passion. ‘My parents are equally neglectful. They don’t care a jot about what I think or wish to do. Marry me, darling. I need to know I’m not alone in the world; that someone cares about me.’
Prue had felt every sympathy with that sentiment, since Sir Randolph did not consider her to be as important as her brothers, or as glamorous or clever as her sister. And she certainly had absolutely no intention of being married off to some rich idiot even more controlling than her father. ‘Why not?’ she’d thought.
Being only eighteen at the time, she’d needed her parent’s permission, which Prue was only too aware she’d never get, so they’d eloped to Gretna Green. Sadly, within days she’d realised Cecil was more obsessed with himself and his own safety, not her. He hadn’t even been very exciting in bed. It had almost been a relief when he’d left for army training and was then sent overseas, even though she’d had to return home as she’d nowhere else to live. Prue had promised herself never to make such impetuous decisions ever again.
Yet perhaps being impulsive and a bit reckless was a part of her she found hard to repress. Now, Prue felt a nudge of regret at admitting to Melissa what she’d told Brenda. Perhaps she should have remained silent. Would her arrogant sister now make even more problems for her dear friend? She did hope not.
*
Brenda stayed at first with her old school friend, Cathie, and quickly found a job working side by side with her at the local rubber factory, which produced tyres for motor cars, army vehicles and trucks. Then she found a flat to rent in Castlefield, overlooking the canal. It was quite small and shabby, with two tiny bedrooms, one nothing more than an empty box room; a combined kitchenette and living area, and a small bathroom. It was sparsely furnished with the odd chair, no wardrobe or set of drawers, but did possess one comfy bed. Here at least was somewhere to rest and lay her head in peace and tranquillity. She felt safe, at last.
The moment came when Brenda decided it was time to speak to the family solicitor. She found the office in John Dalton Street, as Prue had said. Staring at the gold lettering, Fairhurst and Emmerson—Solicitors, on the glass panel of the office door, she summoned up her courage and stepped into the dusty and dim interior. She asked the young woman tapping away at a typewriter if she might speak with a solicitor.
‘Do you have an appointment?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Both gentlemen are very busy people. Whom do you wish to speak to, and about what?’
‘I really don’t mind, but it’s a private matter,’ Brenda said, feeling slightly flustered and out of her depth.
Reaching for the office diary, the young lady made an appointment for her the following evening, soon after Brenda finished work at six o’clock, with Mr Fairhurst. Feeling highly relieved Brenda walked away, heart racing, but then spent a sleepless night worrying over how much she should tell.
Sitting in the solicitor’s office the next evening, hands clasped nervously in her lap, and breathing in the scent of dusty law books, every word Brenda had planned to say went out of her head. Perhaps the blank expression of disinterest in the solicitor’s faded brown eyes as he shuffled papers about on his desk was putting her off. His ears were large, rather like a dog’s, sticking out from an angular-shaped head, a frown creasing his bushy eyebrows. Brenda knew she would not find it easy to reveal the traumas she’d suffered to a complete stranger, and could but hope he didn’t ask too many questions.
Steepling his fingers and propping them against his wide mouth, he leaned back in his chair to stare at her. ‘So what is your problem, Miss-er—um—Stuart?’
‘Mrs Stuart,’ Brenda corrected him, presenting him with the basic facts of her short married life, without attempting to go into too much detail. ‘I believe my late husband did send you a copy of his will.’
The fingers tapped and the frown deepened as if he was struggling to capture a wayward memory. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said at last, and calling upon his secretary, he instructed her to locate the will in the archives. Some long moments later she bustled back in to hand it over to him, the document looking far more formal than the paper Jack had posted. Putting on his spectacles he flicked through page after page, and began to silently read it.
Brenda was instantly irritated that she was not presented with a copy, or told what it said, but carefully held her annoyance in
check as she awaited his response. At last he set the document down on the desk, clasping his hands upon it. ‘Master Jack did leave you a sum of money, quite small, but then the family is not as well endowed with cash as it once was.’
Taking a quick swallow in her dry mouth and thinking of her precious son, Brenda asked, ‘How small?’
Glancing again at the will, he pursed his wide lips. ‘It would be a certain percentage, possibly amounting to around five hundred pounds.’
‘Oh, my word, that’s not small at all. Amazing!’
‘I would, of course, need proof of your wedding before any money could be granted to you.’
Goodness, had her brother-in-law already warned this man not to believe a word she said? Or was this a legal requirement? ‘I assume you are speaking of a marriage certificate?’
‘Indeed.’ He gazed upon her again with bland indifference, his fingers tapping together.
‘I was hoping that you could help me with this problem,’ Brenda said, and went on to explain where and when they had married at the Eglise Saint Roch in November 1939, and how she had come to lose all her papers a year later when arrested. ‘I have written to the priest there, but had no reply. Possibly you’ll need to contact someone in authority in the Catholic church, or the city hall. I’ve really no idea how to resolve the matter.’
‘We’ll do what we can,’ he said with a resigned sniff. ‘Although with the war still going on, it won’t be easy, even assuming what you say to be true.’
‘It most certainly is true. I’m not expecting a penny for myself, but my son surely has that right.’
‘You have a son?’
‘I do.’
The solicitor’s interest perked up at this news, and he glanced again at the will. ‘Ah, well, Master Jack has left his portion of shares in the business to be divided between you and any children you may have.’
Brenda stared at him in stunned disbelief. This was the last thing she’d expected. ‘Shares in the family business? Oh, my goodness, I can’t believe it! So darling Tommy will have a future, after all, once I find him.’
Now he frowned at her. ‘Find him?’
Brenda told him all about her missing child and how she’d come to lose him, her heart slowly pounding as she did so. ‘I also need some assistance to locate the address of Camille’s cousin, Adèle Rouanet, as I’m hoping he is still with her, now that dear Camille is sadly departed.’
His gaze softened with sympathy as he studied the sadness haunting her brown eyes. ‘I suggest you give all the details to my secretary, Miss Dobson. She can then apply to the authorities in Paris for the necessary paperwork, and make suitable enquiries to discover the address of this lady.’
‘Thank you so much, sir. You’ve been most helpful.’ Shaking his hand with vigour and gratitude, Brenda hurried off to speak to the young lady in question with hope in her heart.
But once back in the flat, Brenda still felt that a part of her was missing, as if someone had reached behind her breast-bone and wrenched out her heart. All she could do was try to keep herself fully occupied and not dwell upon her loss, filling her days with activity. She would slip from high optimism to dismal depression from one day to the next, as if tumbling once more into that deep dark pit. It did occasionally cross her mind that there might be similarities between her own situation and that of her mother. Then she would remind herself that she had not deliberately abandoned Tommy. She’d left him in a safe pair of hands when finding herself faced with a horrific situation, and fervently believed she would find him one day.
She spent every evening after work writing letters to any friend or contact she could think of, as well as various family members suggested by Prue, asking them to help find Tommy and Adèle. It felt good to be back in her home city, even if a part of her heart was still in France, missing her son.
Ten
France, 1941
If they’d been hoping for warmth and comfort on arrival, reality soon kicked in. ‘My lord, what a filthy mess. Don’t take off a single item of clothing, or we’ll freeze to death,’ Emma warned, as they were shown into a shabby attic-type room at the top of the building which stank almost as badly as the train. There were no beds for them to sleep on, merely straw-filled mattresses with a single army blanket. Not even removing her glamorous fur coat, Emma lay down, closed her lovely blue eyes and was almost instantly asleep.
Equally exhausted after the long journey, Brenda fell on to the palliasse also fully clothed, gazing around the grim room in horror. There were bugs and vermin everywhere, brown marks on the walls she preferred not to investigate, and one small wood-burning stove puffing out more smoke than heat, as there was very little fuel in it. Neither was there any hot water to wash in, just one cold tap standing in a corner next to a bucket evidently meant for them to pee in. The place stank of faeces, decaying flesh and vomit, even though there were lavatories outside in the yard.
At supper that evening they queued for ages to receive a small bowl of soup containing what might have been a few flecks of barley, although she couldn’t be certain. Nor was it any better the next morning when they were woken at 7.30 and offered nothing more than bread and water for breakfast.
The food was generally boringly monotonous, mainly comprising soup, stewed beans or mangy potatoes. Occasionally there might be a few scraps of tough horse-meat included. In the evenings they were again given a slice of bread, this time with jam or cheese, frequently green with mould. As a result of the foul quality of the food, diarrhoea and malnutrition became all too common.
From the very first day they spent hours cleaning the filthy room and washing the few clothes they’d brought with them in a horse trough in the courtyard. And emptying the bucket, which was never a pleasant task.
‘We’re also ordered to clean and empty the lavatories twice a day, and sweep away the snow,’ Emma told her, cringing in disgust.
‘At least that way we know they too are clean,’ Brenda said as consolation.
These tasks and many others became a regular routine. In the afternoons they would take some exercise, play games, or sports, or even dance to help keep their spirits up. Lights had to be out by nine.
Brenda’s chief concern was missing her darling Tommy. How she ached to hold him in her arms again. Her periods had stopped, which was almost a relief, but milk continued to leak from her breasts for some weeks, until the lack of food resolved that problem too. Day and night she carried in her head the image of his baby-blue gaze locked onto hers as he suckled. She could see the flutter of his eyelashes, feel the touch of his tiny fingers, and smell the sweet tang of milk and talcum powder on his soft skin. She felt a desperate need to know that he was well.
Letters could be sent to family, although they had to be kept brief and with no mention of the war, or where they were being held. Even then censorship was so strict that many sections of a letter were blacked out, which meant the ones sent could only state: ‘I am fine and well.’ No other information was permitted, save for comments on the weather.
But how would Camille know where she was being held? And how could Brenda contact the two cousins without an address? She wrote to every neighbour she could think of in Paris, including the boulangerie where she used to buy their bread, asking if they knew where Madame Stuart was now living.
Emma was equally concerned about her husband, and frequently wrote to her parents in England, hoping they might have heard from him. The two friends would take turns to queue up at the office each morning, hoping for replies, but it took months before Emma heard back from them, no doubt because some letters got lost.
Brenda received no response at all to any of her letters. Pain filled her heart and soul as weeks and months slid by and still she heard nothing, causing yet more sleep problems, heart palpitations and depression. ‘What am I going to do? How can I find my child once I’m allowed out of here?’ she would wail, and Emma would give her a comforting hug.
‘Think of all the poor infants who
have died here already, from being malnourished or picking up some dreadful disease or other. At least your son will be safe and well.’
Brenda reminded herself of that fact constantly, which did help a little. But she longed to know whether the two cousins were safely settled in the Loire Valley. And if so, where?
*
The war trundled remorselessly on and the two friends spent the next two years suffering near starvation and enduring a most difficult time. Brenda was still grieving for her husband as well as badly missing her child, even though she was deeply grateful for Camille and Adèle’s care of him. Having been brought up in an orphanage, she found that she coped better than most of the women. She’d also made a private resolve following her recent traumas, to keep busy and concentrate upon dealing with whatever was going on in life now, not allowing herself to dwell on the past. She certainly made fewer complaints than her new friend, Emma. Being a smart girl from a fairly wealthy family, she hated being so confined and constantly fretted and made objections to the sorry state of the place. And there were still a great many problems.
‘Why is it that now food parcels have eventually started to be delivered from the Red Cross, we don’t always receive them? I think these bloody German guards must nick them.’
Feeling starving hungry, Emma handed over one of her beautiful diamond rings to buy one of these food parcels back off the guards. The women were delighted to find it contained powdered milk, corned beef, Spam and cigarettes, which she happily shared between them all. It was such a relief to at last have tasty food that she did this time and time again until she had no more rings, trinkets or possessions of any sort to use by way of payment. Not even enough to buy jam or marmalade.
Grateful as she was for Emma’s generosity, Brenda felt thankful her own ring was still safe with Camille.
Hot showers eventually became available, if only twice a month, except when the water had been switched off, which it frequently was. Finding enough fuel to keep them warm also became increasingly difficult, and the freezing cold would bring on coughs and colds. Brenda suffered frequently from bouts of influenza, always anxious it might turn into pneumonia, as happened with several of the women.
Always In My Heart Page 7