Secrets

by Lesley Pearse

  The first priority was to find out what happened to Adele at The Firs. If a man supposed to be taking care of children was molesting them, then he had to be stopped.

  ‘I could make the cocoa,’ Adele said suddenly, breaking into Honour’s reverie. ‘You’ve been rushing around all day and you must be tired.’

  Honour gulped hard, for Adele’s sensitivity was further evidence that she’d spent her entire childhood trying to placate people. When Honour was twelve she wouldn’t have ever considered that a grown woman could be tired.

  ‘Not now, we’ll do it later. I want you to tell me why you ran away from The Firs,’ she said bluntly.

  ‘I didn’t like it there,’ Adele said, and suddenly looked evasive.

  ‘It was more than that, and you know it,’ Honour said crisply. ‘Now, just tell me and get it over with.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  Honour saw her head had dropped down and she was wringing her hands. ‘I know it’s hard to talk about things that embarrass you,’ she said firmly. ‘But I have to know the truth. You see, I shall have to go to the police any day now.’

  Adele looked up in alarm. ‘Why? I didn’t do anything wrong.’

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t. But when you ran away Mr Makepeace must have reported you missing to the police. They might be searching for you, and if I don’t tell them you are here with me, I could get into a lot of trouble. I will also have to tell them the reasons you ran away, to make sure they don’t send you back there.’

  ‘They can’t make me go back there!’ Adele exclaimed.

  ‘They could,’ Honour said firmly. ‘I may be your grandmother, but you were put into the Makepeaces’ care, not mine.’

  ‘Can’t I stay here with you?’ Adele said, her eyes wide and fearful. ‘Please, Granny?’

  Honour knew that calling her Granny was a slip of the tongue, but it touched something deep within her. The girl had persisted in calling her Mrs Harris all this time, and Honour hadn’t suggested something less formal because she didn’t want to be moved by emotion.

  ‘I doubt they’d let you stay here,’ she said brusquely. ‘They’d look at this place with no electricity or bathroom and they’d think that it was better for you to be in that big house with other children.’

  ‘But I feel safe here,’ Adele retorted.

  Honour knew that two weeks ago that plea would not have meant anything to her. But her fright at thinking Adele was going to die, nursing her back to health, and the child’s sweet, uncomplaining nature had altered her perspective. While Honour still had many reservations about her own suitability to take care of a young girl, and her ability to find the money to feed her too, Adele had crept under that hard shell of hers. And unless someone else came forward with a more suitable home for her granddaughter, she wasn’t going to let her go without a fight.

  ‘Feeling safe means you trust someone,’ she said. ‘Do you trust me?’

  Adele nodded.

  ‘If you trust me, then you can tell me what happened,’ Honour said.

  She waited. The girl was frowning, as if she didn’t know where to start. Every now and then she would glance up at Honour, open her mouth to speak, then shut it again.

  Honour felt like shouting at her to spit it out and be done with it, but she controlled herself and thought what Frank would say and do. ‘Start with the bit you didn’t like,’ she suggested. ‘Once you’ve said that it won’t be so hard.’

  ‘He got in my bed,’ Adele blurted out in a rush. ‘He—’ She broke off and began to cry.

  Honour was tempted to make it easier for her, to use the word rape. But she herself wouldn’t have known what that meant at the age of twelve, and she felt sure Adele was equally innocent. When he began to recover mentally, Frank had said that telling her about the terrible things he witnessed during the war did help him to put them aside. Perhaps if Adele faced up to this awful business and spoke of it in her own words it would help her too.

  ‘Come and sit next to me,’ she said, patting the seat beside her.

  Adele was out of her seat and on to the couch like greased lightning, and her desire to be held was so obvious that it brought a lump to Honour’s throat. Involuntarily she found herself putting both her arms around the child to comfort her. ‘Go on,’ she whispered. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘He put his hands under my nightdress and touched me,’ Adele sobbed, burying her head against Honour’s chest. ‘He said it was his way of showing he loved me. He got on top of me and tried to put his thing in me.’

  ‘Did he get it into you?’ Honour asked, almost gagging at the brutal question.

  ‘I don’t think so, it was too big and I kept wriggling,’ she whispered. ‘But he made me hold it,’ she added.

  ‘And?’ Honour said.

  ‘I said I was going to be sick when stuff came out of it. He told me to run to the bathroom, and I did. I was sick too, again and again. He just left me there. I think he went back to his own bed.’

  Honour closed her eyes and let out a silent sigh of relief that he hadn’t penetrated the child, at least not that time.

  ‘And how long after that did you leave The Firs?’ she asked.

  ‘That same night,’ Adele said. ‘I couldn’t stay there, could I? So I just washed, got dressed and went.’

  Honour felt she could breathe again at last. ‘Yes, that was the right thing to do,’ she said, smoothing down the child’s hair. ‘He was a very wicked man to do what he did to you, and you were very brave and sensible. Now we’ll have some cocoa, and then you can tell me what Mr Makepeace was like when you first got to The Firs.’

  Honour was shaking as she put the milk to heat on the stove, lit the oil lamp and drew the curtains. Adele was hunched up on the couch, her tears had died down to just a few snuffles, but she looked the picture of misery. It made Honour question whether she had done the right thing. She wouldn’t forgive herself if she made the poor child ill again or gave her nightmares.

  As they drank the cocoa, Adele told her all about Mr Makepeace, and as the story about the private lessons unfolded, and how important the man became to her, so Honour began to see the whole picture.

  It was a sinister story, for as an adult she could see that the man had clearly planned ahead. He’d softened Adele up by telling her how clever and special she was, and unused to affection as she was, she wouldn’t realize his caresses were improper. Alienating her from the other children would have made her even more dependent on him, and he probably thought he had her entirely in his power by that last night.

  Honour had no doubt that if Adele hadn’t run away that night, by now he would be using her whenever he felt like it.

  ‘Was it my fault?’ Adele asked a little later.

  ‘Of course not,’ Honour said a little sharply because she felt so tired and drained. ‘He was the bad one. But you are safe now. It’s all over.’

  ‘But what if the police say I’ve got to go back to The Firs?’ Adele asked in a small voice.

  ‘They’ll have me to reckon with if they do,’ Honour said fiercely. ‘I shall be making all the decisions about you from now on.’

  ‘Does that mean you would let me stay with you, Mrs Harris?’

  Honour looked at Adele and thought she looked like a frightened rabbit caught in lamp light. Such big eyes, still swimming in tears, and her lips quivering. If she could get her hair trimmed, brush it till it shone, feed her up to fill out those stick-thin limbs, and fill her mind with the beauty of nature till there was no room for the ugly memories she had now, Honour would feel she’d done something really worthwhile.

  ‘I think Granny is a better thing to call me,’ she said with a smile. ‘And they’d better let you stay now after all the trouble I went to getting you well again.’

  Part II

  Chapter Nine

  1933

  Adele was deep in thought as she picked gorse flowers out on the marsh. Her grandmother used them to make gorse wine, which she sold in Rye alo
ng with her preserves, eggs and other produce. The large straw basket was almost full now, and Adele’s hands were covered in small scratches from the prickly bushes. She barely noticed them, or the cold spring wind. In nearly two years of living with her grandmother she’d become hardened to such things.

  Adele knew that she’d changed a great deal since the day she arrived exhausted and sick at Curlew Cottage. She had grown some four inches to five feet three, and though she was still slender, her limbs were now rounded out with muscle. She was delighted that her hair had grown long, thick and glossy and that her complexion was clear and glowing, but she hadn’t yet come to terms with her budding breasts. They gave her more embarrassment than pleasure.

  If anyone was to ask her what she considered to be the most dramatic change in her, she would probably claim it was her height. But in her heart she knew that it was being happy.

  While the life she shared with her grandmother was sometimes, particularly in winter, very hard, and absolutely nothing like the vision she’d held as a child of a perfect home, she had come to like it. Granny might be brusque and odd, but she was constant. Adele never had to brace herself for sudden rages, she was never belittled, or her efforts scorned.

  Maybe she could do with a few explanations, like exactly what went wrong between her mother and grandmother; where her mother was now and if she was better. It would also be good to know if her mother had made any efforts to discover if Adele was being looked after properly, and whether Mr Makepeace was punished for what he did to her.

  Granny wasn’t one for explanations, however, especially when the subject matter was awkward. Yet Adele had come to see that she was wise and honest, and she had no doubt she would tell her these things when she believed the time was right, for beneath her crusty exterior there was a very tender side.

  In the winter Adele never went to school without a big plate of porridge inside her and her coat warmed by the stove. On hot summer days when she returned home, Granny was often waiting with a picnic, which they’d eat after a swim at the beach. When storms came in the night, she always got up and came into her room to check Adele wasn’t frightened. She was interested in what Adele learned at school, and she could often explain things far better than her own teacher.

  During the first summer here, just about everything Adele had previously thought important was challenged. Back in London, money had dominated everything. Arguments between her parents mostly started over it, you couldn’t pay the rent, buy food, or go to the pub or pictures without it. Adele had always thought that it was having money that made people happy.

  Yet Granny set little store by it. She was careful with what little money she had, but it was only for basic commodities like oil for the lamps, flour, tea and sugar she had to buy; mostly everything else she made, reared, grew or gathered.

  She kept the stove going with gathered wood, she grew vegetables, baked her own bread. Transport was her own two legs or her old bicycle. She made her preserves with whatever fruit or vegetable was in season; gorse flowers, elderberries and blackberries could be gathered for nothing. She wasted nothing – an old dress could be made into a skirt or blouse, vegetable peelings and even the chicken and rabbit droppings made compost for her garden.

  But Granny saw no hardship in this, she took pleasure in living off the land, and Adele had learned to like it too.

  In the beginning Adele had believed she would always yearn for London, with its shops, cinemas and crowds of people. Back at The Firs she had yearned for fish and chips, to ride on a tram, and the quiet of the countryside unnerved her. Yet in that first summer here, once she was well enough to go out, Granny introduced her to her beloved marshes and Adele had discovered a world more beautiful and exciting than anything she had ever dreamed of.

  It wasn’t a bleak and barren place as she had first thought. It was a home for all manner of plants, birds and other wildlife. When they went out on wood-collecting walks, Granny would point out different birds and name them. She could identify each call or cry, knew every plant and herb. Slowly Adele found herself enveloped in its magic, and she loved to walk on her own, relishing the peace and beauty. She would remember that in London in summertime the leaves on the trees hung limply, daubed with dust and soot. She would recall the unpleasant smells of sewers and rotting food, hot sticky nights when she couldn’t sleep, and the constant noise of traffic, and people shouting and fighting. The sounds that came in through her bedroom window here were all gentle ones: the bleat of a sheep, the hoot of an owl, the crash of waves on the shingle beach.

  Her grandmother kept her back from school right through till the start of the autumn term in September, but to Adele’s surprise she didn’t feel lonely without other children. There were so many books to read, and she could draw and paint, sew and knit. Her grandmother also taught her to swim and to ride her bicycle.

  Adele smiled to herself as she remembered the very first time she saw her grandmother in a bathing suit. It was a very old-fashioned knitted one, royal blue with a red stripe across her chest, almost like a baby’s romper suit that covered her right down to her knees and elbows. Yet she had a good figure for a woman in her fifties, still lean and taut with shapely legs. And she could swim like a fish, diving into the waves with all the glee of a child. She said her father had taught her when she was only five, even though in those days it wasn’t considered proper for a girl. He’d had a sister who drowned in a river and because of that he believed all children should learn to swim as water attracted them.

  Honour was a good teacher, surprisingly patient and very encouraging. Whether she was showing Adele how to make jam and bread, to tell the difference between weeds and flowers, or ride a bicycle, she had a knack of explaining just enough so Adele could grasp the idea, then she’d stand back and let her do it herself.

  Adele could do things now she would never have been able to imagine in London. She could skin a rabbit as well as her grandmother, she could cook and lay a fire and get it going with only one match, pluck a chicken and chop wood.

  As Adele continued picking the gorse flowers, her mind was on the future rather than the many skills she’d already learned. In three months’ time in July she would be fourteen and able to leave school and find work.

  The Slump, or Depression as some people called it, continued, growing worse every month as more businesses folded. Although Adele rarely saw a newspaper, she could see the real effects of unemployment in Rye when she went to school. The men stood around on the quayside in groups, their faces etched with anxiety and almost certainly hunger. She saw their wives with drawn faces looking longingly in shop windows. And many of the children in the meanest streets in Rye were so pale, thin and lethargic that Adele often felt guilty that she had more than enough to eat.

  Her grandmother had very strong views about the plight of the poor, though she didn’t consider herself to be one of them. She got angry about something called the Means Test, because it meant some families had to sell their furniture and other belongings to qualify for dole money. She thought it was immoral that the rich continued to buy motor cars and expensive clothes and go on holidays to France or Italy, yet paid their servants starvation wages. When she heard how two men had been arrested for stealing a sheep on the marsh because their families were so hungry, she marched into Rye and gave the police a piece of her mind. As she pointed out, the families of those men would only suffer more if they were sent to prison. And what was one sheep when the farmer didn’t even know how many he had?

  Adele had got a sketchy knowledge of what was going on elsewhere in England and the rest of the world through occasional trips to the pictures in Rye. On Pathe News she saw dockyards at a standstill, haggard men waving banners pleading for work, enormous queues outside soup kitchens in America, gangsters killing one another in places like Chicago, and the somewhat sinister rise to power of a man called Adolf Hitler in Germany.

  She sometimes felt a little guilty that she cared less about the real world th
an the make-believe one of the Hollywood films she and her grandmother saw. But it was good to watch glamorous film stars dancing and singing wearing gorgeous clothes, to glimpse a world where houses were like palaces, and everyone had big cars, fur coats and swimming pools.

  Her grandmother was very fond of remarking that ‘Hollywood was dope for the down-trodden masses’, and she was probably right, but even so Adele couldn’t help but think that if she could only get the right job, then maybe she could buy lovely clothes, stop Granny from working so hard, and make her proud of her.

  ‘Excuse me!’

  Adele jumped at the unexpected sound of a male voice and turned to see a boy with a bicycle behind her.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he said apologetically.

  His posh voice and good clothes set him apart from the local boys she knew by sight. He was perhaps sixteen, fresh-faced, tall and slender, with very shiny dark hair.

  ‘I didn’t hear you ride up,’ she said, blushing furiously because she knew she must look like a tramp to someone who wore grey flannels with a knife-edge crease, and a tweed jacket like something from a tailor’s window.

  On school days Adele looked much like her classmates, often better dressed than many of them because her grandmother was good with the needle, and she had a pinafore dress and blouse as good as any bought in a shop. But away from school, clothes had to be practical, and Honour had made her a pair of trousers which she wore tucked into Wellington boots, topped by a much-darned navy blue jumper. One girl at school had said sarcastically that she looked like a replica of her grandmother.

  ‘It’s the wind, it kind of whines, blocking out everything else,’ she added nervously.

  ‘I should’ve rung my bell,’ the boy said with a smile. ‘But that seemed awfully rude. I only wanted to know if I can ride to Rye Harbour this way.’