by Lizzie Lane
‘That’s wonderful! Oh, Margot, how can I ever thank you enough?’
Margot winked one dark eye and pursed her red lips like a femme fatale from a 1920s movie. ‘There is a certain proviso, my darling Lizzie.’
Lizzie waited, half expecting her to say that she could only stay there for two weeks a month.
Seeing her anxious expression, Margot laughed. ‘Don’t look so worried, darling. I require no rent, the accommodation is clean and the house could do with a full-time resident to warm it up, so to speak. The first proviso is that you use the second bedroom, a charming little pink and white room up under the eaves.’
‘It sounds wonderful.’
‘Slow down, darling. The second proviso is far more important than the first. You’ll have to put up with me using the main bedroom when I need to.’ She winked again. ‘It has a four-poster with a lumpy mattress, but it doesn’t stay lumpy for long with two bodies rolling over it. My chap’s quite a hunk and helps me flatten it now and again. How’s that with you?’
‘Very generous. I can never thank you enough.’
Relieved to have somewhere to stay, Lizzie didn’t immediately enquire who else was rolling over the lumpy mattress with Margot. She had a bolthole to stay in until presenting herself at the nursing home and that was really all that mattered.
Chapter Thirty-Six
‘It’s small, but pretty,’ Margot said on the day she collected Lizzie in an army staff car and took the road to Stowmarket.
Margot was telling nothing but the truth. The cottage was thatched wattle and daub, with thick beams supporting a low ceiling. An ancient range, its brass handles polished by Margot’s ‘little woman from the village’, provided hot water for cooking and heating. As winter approached, the little woman’s husband brought apple and elm logs to burn in the huge inglenook fireplace. He also trapped rabbits, a welcome addition to anyone’s diet.
‘Your secret is safe with me,’ said Margot, ‘as long as mine is safe with you.’
Margot’s secret was Owen, a PT instructor from Cardiff. He spoke with a Welsh accent, sang in the bath and had iron-hard muscles.
‘What he lacks in mental agility, he certainly makes up for physically,’ murmured Margot on the first weekend she brought him to the cottage.
‘With those muscles, he could flatten a lumpy mattress all by himself,’ Lizzie commented. She’d just seen him doing physical jerks out on the front lawn, muscles as thickly knotted as tree roots protruding from the confines of a tight white vest.
‘But not so much fun, darling,’ whispered Margot. She licked her lips.
Lizzie saw the hungry look in her eyes, surmising it had nothing to do with the mince and onions being stewed for lunch. She’d probably looked at Guy in the same way at one time, wondering what the likes of him saw in a girl like her. Her mother would have warned her. She wondered about Margot’s mother.
‘Do your parents know about him?’ she asked Margot.
‘Good grief, no! Pa would fetch a shotgun and Ma would have a fainting fit. There’s no commitment between us – perish the thought,’ explained Margot with a flourish of manicured fingernails, French perfume drifting from every movement. ‘It’s purely a physical thing. Being with someone physically helps me forget there’s a war on. After the war I’ll probably marry an ex-major from the Guards with a job in the City – a stockbroker or a Swiss banker. He’ll be rich, I’ll be a dutiful wife and although he might not be much in the physical department, I’ll put up with it. After all, I’ll still have my memories.’
Margot sounded totally convinced of how things would be, as though a map had been drawn with a straight path that she would dutifully follow. In a way Lizzie was saddened by it. What about poor Owen? How did he feel about the affair?
They were two lovely people from opposite ends of the social spectrum, and yet in a strange way they suited each other. But then, opposites attract, she thought – just like her and Guy.
Owen seemed nice and was well put together. He was very keen on keeping fit, getting up early and doing physical training in the garden most mornings. Margot on the other hand rarely came down to breakfast before nine.
Lizzie took her friend a cup of tea in bed when she came to stay. Four visits down the road she suggested Margot get up and join Owen out on the lawn.
‘It’s not civilized,’ she’d told Lizzie, her voice muffled beneath the bedclothes. One eye blinked open. ‘Besides, I had all the exercise I needed last night.’
‘Margot, you are incorrigible!’
‘But fun,’ murmured Margot, retreating back beneath the bedclothes. Lizzie laughed and went back downstairs.
She fried a little streaky bacon for breakfast, and set out toast, butter and marmalade. Both the bacon and butter came from a nearby farm and was brought in by Margot’s ‘little woman’ who turned out to be called May Letherby.
Lizzie glanced out of the small kitchen window. Owen had finished his morning exercise and came in wiping at his naked upper torso with a towel. His muscles rippled and bulged beneath his skin. Feeling her face redden, Lizzie picked up the spatula and attacked the sizzling bacon.
‘There’s mushrooms as well as an egg today,’ she said, scooping both on to their plates. ‘Mrs Letherby came across the mushrooms in the field on her way over.’
She stopped herself from gabbling on that Mr Letherby kept chickens, and that the bacon had come from a pig killed and cured some weeks before. Officially, it should have been reported to the Ministry of Food, but this was one little piggy that the Letherbys had kept for a private market.
Owen beamed and sniffed the air. ‘Champion!’
Shrugging himself into his shirt, he pulled out a chair, straddling the seat as though he were mounting a horse.
Lizzie sat down too. She picked up the teapot. ‘Tea?’
‘Let me,’ he said, his mouth full of bread and mushrooms. He took the pot from her and poured. ‘You’re in a delicate condition, luvvy. No sense in lifting anything heavy when I’ve got the muscles to do it for you.’ His smile was as broad as his accent. She thanked him and, between mouthfuls of breakfast, she asked him how long he’d been in the army.
‘Five years now. I’m what you call a career soldier, you see. That’s why I’m not fighting overseas. I’m wanted here, to use my experience to lick men into shape. They’re so green some of them, you see. Greener than a valley in springtime!’ Suddenly he nodded at her belly. ‘Marge tells me the father ran out on you.’
Marge? Margot never allowed anyone to call her Marge. ‘So downmarket, darling. Makes me sound like a girl from a cottonmill town.’
Lizzie felt her face reddening. ‘She had no business telling you that.’
‘She tells me a lot of things. Sometimes she tries to hold back, but I’ve got a way with her, you see.’
‘Oh, you really think so?’ snapped Lizzie, slamming down her knife and fork. ‘You’ve got big muscles. And that’s all you’ve got and that’s the only reason she bothers with you. There’s no commitment. She told me that herself!’ Her eyes blazed. She wanted to stab him with her look.
A slight smile played around his lips. ‘Is that what she told you then?’ His voice was as gentle and as rhythmic as a song. His eyes twinkled with untold secrets. He leaned closer, so close that she could smell the fresh sweat glistening on his chest and shoulders. ‘Mark my words; me and Marge will spend the rest of our lives together. She might not admit it just now, but believe you me, that’s the way it will be.’ He gestured again at her stomach. ‘I didn’t mean to insult you. We all need a bit of passion in the midst of all this bloodshed. I understand if you don’t want to talk about it. I apologize. Have to say though, it makes me ashamed to be a man when others of my gender treat women like that.’
Accepting that Guy Hunter had lied to her was never easy. Night time was the worst; it was when she was alone and darkness fell that she remembered how it had felt to lie in his arms. That was also when she felt jealous of Margot
and her Owen. She never challenged Margot that the relationship was anything but physical. Only time would tell who was telling the truth. In the meantime she fended off letters from her mother. It was hard enough going through this by herself, harder still ignoring the fact that her mother would be worrying.
On one of Margot’s weekends with Owen, she was burning the last of the autumn leaves on a bonfire at the edge of the vegetable garden. Margot had already phoned to say they were coming. ‘And we’ve got a surprise for you,’ she’d added.
There was no point in asking Margot what the surprise might be; she was terribly good at keeping secrets.
The sound of a car engine made Lizzie raise her head. The sun was bright but low in the sky, seeming to hang by a thread above the wide, flat landscape.
She shielded her eyes, aware that her cheeks were prickled red by the cold. Her hands were cold inside some old leather gardening gloves she’d found. Her stomach muscles were aching; she wouldn’t admit, even to herself, that strenuous exercise could bring on a miscarriage, though she’d heard it could. She just carried on with whatever she wanted to do, just as she would once the child was born.
Margot’s car appeared, framed by thorny branches and rosehips forming an arch above the white wooden gate. The weak sun glinted on the car windows. Two figures were in the front – Margot and Owen of course – and another sat in the back. She squinted, trying to make out who it was – definitely familiar, she decided; definitely male. The sudden shifting of her stomach was only partly due to the growing baby, as at least ten per cent was apprehension at Margot’s ‘little surprise’. Crisply efficient and smiling broadly, Margot closed the car door behind her. The figure from the back seat got out and joined Owen, the two men chatting amiably, though Patrick’s attention – for that was who it was – kept straying to her.
‘My dear,’ said Margot, her lips barely brushing Lizzie’s cheeks. ‘You are in need of good company and I—’
‘We,’ Owen corrected her.
‘It was our shared opinion that you needed good friends around you and Owen and I cannot always give you our full attention.’
‘Because we’re too wrapped up in each other,’ added Owen, at the same time hugging Margot tightly to his side with one arm.
Margot untangled herself from Owen, took Patrick by the elbow and dragged him forward. ‘So who better?’
Patrick fiddled with his cap, turning it this way and that as he fought to decide whether he’d done the right thing by coming here.
Lizzie couldn’t make up her mind whether she’d ever found Margot insensitive in the past. A sneaking suspicion that she was being manipulated wouldn’t go away. Margot is clever, and don’t you forget it, she told herself.
‘This is going to be a marvellous weekend,’ Margot declared, sliding her arm into Owen’s. Together they headed up the garden path, the dried leaves of winter foliage rustling against their legs as they passed.
Together Lizzie and Patrick watched them go, neither quite ready to say what was on their mind.
Patrick got in first. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t want to intrude. I did tell Margot that, but you know how she is.’ He paused, waiting for her reaction. ‘I’ll go if you don’t want me here.’
She didn’t answer at first. It wasn’t easy to ask herself in the space of a minute exactly how she felt about him staying, though one practical question did spring to mind.
‘I don’t know where you’ll sleep,’ she blurted.
Patrick’s cheeks flared the colour of the rosehips hanging languidly by the gate. ‘She said I could have the settee by the fire.’ He hung his head for a second. ‘I’ll be warm there.’
Damn Margot! Didn’t she know that Patrick staying would make her feel awkward, guilty and every other negative emotion she could think of? The answer was obvious: yes, of course she knew! That was the whole purpose of this visit, wasn’t it? To get her to accept Patrick’s offer of marriage and keep the child.
The prongs of the rake dug into the ground as she thought things through. Her first inclination was to send Patrick packing. That would teach them!
‘Let me finish this.’ She let him take the rake from her hands and watched as he meticulously raked up leaves and twigs embedded more deeply in the soil.
She folded her arms. ‘I thought you were going abroad again.’
‘I was, but then, what with the Americans getting involved, plans got altered.’
‘Did you want to go back overseas?’
‘What young chap doesn’t want to see the world? But then I didn’t think it was so important any more. There are other things more important than seeing the world, and anyway, I’ve seen a fair bit of it so far.’
He glanced up at her. She didn’t need him to tell her what or who was more important; she could see it in his eyes.
‘There,’ he said, shaking the last of the leaves on to the bonfire. ‘All done.’ He turned to face her. ‘Shall I stay, or shall I go?’
She pursed her lips and swayed from side to side. ‘I’ll make us a cup of tea. I might even find a slice of carrot cake.’
‘Carrot cake?’ Patrick looked surprised. City people never came across cakes actually made from carrots.
Lizzie laughed. ‘May makes cakes from anything that’s plentiful – even turnips.’
He looked faintly sceptical. ‘I’m not sure I’m going to like this.’
‘Oh, you will,’ she said, her voice lighter now she’d made the decision that he could stay.
‘I expect Margot’s already got the kettle on,’ he said, nodding towards the square of amber light that was the kitchen window.
Lizzie, a light smile playing around her lips, shook her head. ‘I doubt that very much.’
Just at that moment a sudden movement at the bedroom window drew their attention. The curtains were being drawn – and in broad daylight. Unlike the kitchen, the bedroom windows did let in enough light to see by. But Margot and Owen were after privacy, not daylight.
‘I see,’ said Patrick. ‘Looks like the tea and cake is for us alone.’
Once inside, Lizzie pulled off her gardening gloves, took off her heavy coat and Wellingtons and reached for the kettle. The kettle was big, black and made from cast iron. Originally made to cater for a whole family plus a few farmhands, it was heavy even when only partially filled.
‘I’ll do it,’ said Patrick, taking it out of her hands.
‘I’ll cut the cake.’ In the end she laid out cold rabbit as well as the cake.
‘Parsley,’ she said on seeing Patrick pick at the green bits.
The sound of creaking bedsprings sounded from the ceiling above them.
‘It’s a four-poster,’ said Lizzie as though that alone explained the series of squeaks.
‘Should we leave anything for them?’
She shook her head. ‘I doubt they’ll want feeding until morning. Tuck in. Eat all you like.’
Patrick did as ordered. ‘Tastes good,’ he said after swallowing the first mouthful. ‘Your mother will be surprised when I tell her how well you’re eating up here.’
Alarm made her prickly. ‘You haven’t told her, have you? I will never forgive you if you have.’
He looked hurt and shook his head, placing the rabbit bones on the edge of his plate. His voice was quiet, considered. ‘No. Of course not. You should know me better than that.’
‘Thank goodness!’
She couldn’t bring herself to say anything more substantial to him. If she did it might give him hope. Up until now she had been strong, determined to go through with this and come out the other side unchanged. To carry it through she had to remain strong, untouched by any pressure from her family. If her mother ever found out about the child, she’d persuade Lizzie to keep it.
‘I don’t want to end up in the same circumstances as my mother,’ she said to Patrick. ‘I don’t want to marry a man purely to save my reputation. Once this is over the child will have a good home and will never know or care that
I ever existed.’
‘If that’s what you want,’ he said. He fell to silence, pushing bits of meat around his plate as though he’d lost his appetite.
Watching his reaction made her feel bad, and she didn’t want him to think badly of her. The feeling was new, or at least she thought it was, but didn’t friends always think well of each other? Wasn’t that what friendship was all about? The urge to make amends, to rebuild his opinion of her, was intense. There seemed to be only one way of doing this. She fingered her piece of cake, breaking off small bits that didn’t find their way to her mouth until she’d made the decision to explain.
The steady squeal of the bedsprings continued above their heads. Another illegitimate baby in the making? No, Lizzie decided. Margot was too fly for that.
‘You never knew your father, did you, Patrick?’
‘I remember him only vaguely – or I think I do. I can never tell with Rosie.’
Rosie was his mother, though he could never quite bring himself to call her that now he was a man; it was his reaction to a neglected childhood.
‘You know my father and you know my mother. You also know Michael.’
Patrick nodded. ‘Michael’s a nice bloke even though he is foreign.’
‘But not my father. Henry Randall is not so nice, is he, or hadn’t you noticed?’
Patrick speared a piece of rabbit with his fork. ‘I’ve noticed he likes a drink.’
‘My mother’s sweetheart died in the trenches but left her pregnant. She had the child adopted and was forced into marrying my father. It was the worst thing she ever did – marrying my father, I mean.’ She leaned forward, her wide eyes looking directly into his in an effort to emphasize all she was saying, all she was feeling.
‘She married him and began to trust him. She trusted him so much that she told him about the child she’d had adopted. That was when he took to the drink and began to treat her badly – very badly. He was very careful to hide his behaviour from us, but I began to suspect. It was our Stanley who opened our eyes. Poor lad was sick a lot when he was younger and kept from school a lot of the time. He saw it all. Shocking for a boy of that age.’