The man with whom Simon had been arguing stepped forward then and took his cap off respectfully as he addressed Jess. ‘Look, missus, we ain’t plannin’ on stayin’ here fer long. An’ we’ll be willin’ to pay yer some rent if that’s what yer wantin’. Me wife there . . .’ he waved a hand towards a heavily pregnant woman who was watching with a frightened look in her eyes from the entrance of one of the vans, ‘she’s expectin’ the child any day now an’ I just wanted some peace an’ quiet fer her till the birthin’s over. I can’t have her droppin’ the kid while we’re on the road. You’ll not even know we’re here if you’ll give us yer permission to stay fer a while. We didn’t realise that this bit o’ land here belonged to anyone when we pulled on, but I promise yer we won’t be no trouble.’
‘Well, it bloody well does belong to me and—’
Jess squeezed Simon’s arm and he fell silent although the look on his face was murderous. Truthfully she wasn’t much happier about the gypsies being there than he was, but the pregnant woman looked so tired and worn out that she couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.
‘Perhaps if it’s only until the baby is born they could stay, couldn’t they?’
Simon glared at her for a moment before snapping sarcastically, ‘Well, you’re the boss, aren’t you? It’s your bloody house and grounds, so I suppose if that’s what you want, that’s how it will be!’ With that he turned and stalked away as Jess looked back towards the gypsies apologetically.
‘Excuse my husband,’ she muttered. ‘He’s been working really hard lately and he’s on a bit of a short fuse.’
‘I appreciate this, missus,’ the man told her, screwing his cap in his hands. ‘You’ll not know we’re here, I promise yer, an’ soon as the babby comes we’ll be off.’
Jess nodded and quickly turned away as Beth and Jo hastily followed her.
‘Dad isn’t very pleased, is he?’ Jo asked, as she ran to keep up with her mother. ‘He hates gypsies.’
‘I’m afraid he’ll just have to live with it then, won’t he?’ Jess told her. ‘They are only people at the end of the day and that poor woman looks as though she’s at the end of her tether.’
Once back at the house, Jo and Beth hastily kicked their shoes off and shot up to Jo’s bedroom. Jo could sense a row coming and wanted to put as much space between her parents and herself as she could.
‘So what the bloody hell did you do that for?’ Simon exploded the second the girls were out of sight. He was pacing up and down the kitchen like a caged animal and Jess knew she had upset him. Again! It seemed that they were always arguing over something or another these days.
‘Look,’ she said, trying to be reasonable. ‘I know they shouldn’t have just pulled onto our land like that, but that poor woman looked really ill. I wouldn’t mind betting she’ll have had that baby within a couple of days and then they’ll be gone. And it’s not as if they’re hurting us, is it? I mean, they’re far enough away from the house, we won’t even know that they’re there.’
‘Huh! I wonder if you’ll still be saying that when things start to go missing and getting vandalised,’ he growled.
‘Oh Simon, don’t be so dramatic. Gypsies aren’t all thieves and vandals, you know.’
‘No? Well, we’ll wait and see then, shall we? But don’t come crying to me when it all goes pear-shaped.’
‘Can’t we just stop all this bickering now?’ she pleaded. ‘We’ve barely said two civil words to each other since I got back yesterday.’
‘And whose fault is that, eh? You were hardly in a good mood when I came to pick you up from the airport, and then you’d barely set foot in the house before you shot off to bed with a headache. If that’s the way holidays affect you, I suggest you think twice before going anywhere again.’
Jess bowed her head, knowing that what he had said was true. She longed to tell him about Mel and the drugs, but now more than ever she realised that it could only lead to more trouble. She had to put it behind her. Again she wished they had never met Emile. But it had taught her a valuable lesson and she knew that she would be a lot more cautious about who she got involved with in the future.
‘How about I make us both a nice cuppa and we start again eh?’ she said softly.
He sniffed but nodded as she hurried over to the kettle and then quickly started to ask him about his latest job. Simon might have his faults but he was a hard-working man and usually once he got on the subject of his work he could talk the hind leg off a donkey.
Later that afternoon, Simon was watching a football match on TV, Jo had gone home with Beth, and Mel was closeted in her room as usual, so feeling at a bit of a loose end, Jess headed back up to the big attic room and was soon engrossed in finding out what was in the chests. Most of it was rubbish – old sheets and pillowcases that the moths had made a meal of; broken kitchen utensils and old bottles. She piled everything she didn’t want to keep by the door and methodically worked her way through the rest. The large wooden chests were still in surprisingly good condition and she decided she would keep them to store Christmas decorations in and all the other usual odds and ends.
And then she came upon yet another chest set slightly apart from the others, and when she lifted the lid she gasped with surprise. It was full of tiny baby clothes, all carefully wrapped in brown paper. She instantly thought of Grace’s baby. There were tiny crocheted bonnets and hand-made nightgowns, as well as a number of little coats and bootees. But why had they never been worn? As she closed the lid of the chest she smiled, keen to read more of Martha’s journal now and find out what Grace had given birth to. The clothes in the chest could have been worn by either sex and gave her no clue.
Sitting back on her heels and swiping her dusty hands across her forehead, Jess’s mind drifted, just as it always did when she thought of Martha. Somehow over the last weeks she had come to regard the girl as a friend, someone she could relate to – and if she really was still there as Laura insisted, then as far as Jess was concerned, she was welcome. After all, it had been Martha’s home long before Jess had been born.
Chapter Twenty-One
It was late on Sunday afternoon before Jess finally spoke to Mel properly again. Simon was out giving someone a quote on an extension, and Jo had gone to a friend’s house for tea, so Jess decided to take full advantage of the fact that they could speak without fear of being overheard or interrupted.
Mel was lying on her stomach on the bed with her head buried in a magazine when Jess went in, and the girl instantly tensed. She had tried to keep out of her mother’s way as much as she could since coming back from Paris, but the confrontation she had been dreading could no longer be avoided.
‘It’s all right, I haven’t come in to read you the riot act,’ Jess told her as she perched on the edge of the bed. ‘But we really do need to talk, Mel. What you did, or almost did, is far too serious to be ignored. I think you understand that, don’t you?’
Mel nodded as tears stung her eyes.
‘Right, then let’s talk about it and get it out of the way, shall we?’ Jess straightened her back and folded her hands primly in her lap. ‘I’ve done a lot of thinking about this and I’ve reached a decision. I have to admit my first reaction was to ring the police and pass Emile Lefavre’s number onto them. But if I do that, Social Services and the police will become involved and I don’t think you’d like that, would you?’
When Mel slowly shook her head Jess continued, ‘I thought about telling your dad too. In fact, with something as serious as this I know I should tell him, but . . . Well, I’m hoping that you’ve learned your lesson and I don’t need to tell you that your dad would hit the roof if he ever found out what you’ve done. Of course, if Emile turns up looking for the drugs I shall have no choice. Has he tried to contact you on your mobile? It’s important you tell me the truth now.’
When Mel shook her head, Jess sighed with relief. ‘Then if you can promise me faithfully that you’ll never do anything as mad as this again, I thin
k the best thing we can do is to try and put it behind us.’
Mel was crying now and Jess had to resist the urge to take her in her arms. But she didn’t want her to get off too lightly.
She stood up now and walked towards the door before pausing to ask, ‘Can you give me that promise, Mel?’
The girl nodded and Jess left the room, praying that she’d made the right decision. Should she have pushed Mel harder to confide in her? Worse still was the underlying guilt that she had exposed the girl to Emile Lefavre – but there was nothing she could do about that now. What was done was done, and she hoped that they’d be able to put it behind them.
The rain had stopped, so she decided to take Alfie for a walk to clear her head. Ten minutes later she stepped out into the darkening afternoon, well wrapped up in a waterproof coat and Wellington boots, with Alfie prancing along at the side of her. Once they reached the lake she struck off to the right and began to follow the river, her wellies squelching as she marched through the mud. Soon the gypsy caravans came into sight and she stopped, wondering if she should turn around and walk the other way. True to their word, the gypsies had kept themselves very much to themselves up to now, and she just prayed that they would continue to do so or she knew she would never hear the last of it from Simon. It was as she was hovering there that the door on one of the caravans opened and the pregnant woman she had met the day before stepped out. She hesitated for a moment when she saw Jess but then began to walk towards her, her arms wrapped protectively around her swollen belly.
‘Thanks for lettin’ us stay a while, missus,’ she said solemnly as she came to a halt in front of Jess. Jess judged the woman to be about the same age as herself. She was tall, and no doubt would be slim when she was not pregnant. Her hair was long and a natural silver-blonde, tied back with an autumn-coloured headsquare, and she had on a man’s jacket that strained across her stomach. A gaudy-coloured skirt flapped about her ankles.
‘It’s quite all right,’ Jess told her with a smile. ‘I hope everything goes well with the birth. And er . . . if you need fresh water there is an outside tap in the courtyard at the house. You are more than welcome to help yourself.’
The woman shook her head rapidly as she glanced across Jess’s shoulder to the house in the distance. ‘Thanks, but you’ll not catch me up there. Bad things have happened there. It ain’t a happy house. You’d do well to get yerself an’ yer young ’uns away from there.’
Jess bristled with indignation. ‘That house happens to be my home,’ she told the woman imperiously. ‘And I have no intention of leaving it.’
‘Then on your own head be it,’ the woman said sorrowfully, quickly making the sign of the cross on her chest. And then without warning she reached out and rested her hand on Jess’s stomach. ‘It’s a little lad, God bless his soul,’ she whispered, her voice heavy with sorrow.
Jess gasped and took a step back, while the woman scuttled back to the warmth of her home on wheels.
Flustered, Jess called Alfie and set off back towards the house, her mind racing. What had the woman meant by ‘It’s a little lad.’
And then suddenly she stopped dead as something occurred to her. Now she came to think of it, she might have missed a period – or even two, if it came to that. She had been so busy working on the house that she hadn’t even noticed. By the time she pushed her way through the kitchen door she was panting breathlessly. Leaving a trail of mud on the tiles in her wake she grabbed her handbag and took out her diary before furiously flicking back through the pages. She always marked the day her period had begun, but there was no tick against the last two months. She sat down heavily on the nearest chair as the colour drained out of her. I can’t be pregnant, she tried to convince herself. The girls are twelve and fourteen now. I’m too old to start again, and anyway Simon and I agreed that there would be no more babies after we had Jo. And yet . . . there was no getting away from the fact that she had missed two periods, and then there was the sickness. She hadn’t felt really well for weeks now but had put it down to a virus or something. One way or another, she needed to know the truth.
First thing on Monday morning, when she had dropped the girls off at their schools, Jess made for the nearest branch of Boots and bought a pregnancy tester kit. As soon as she got home she headed for the bathroom . . . twenty minutes later found her perching on the edge of her bed in complete shock. The test had proved positive. But how could the gypsy woman have known? And how was she going to tell Simon? She really couldn’t envisage him being pleased about it. And she didn’t even know if she wanted any more children herself. She was happy with Jo and Mel, for most of the time anyway. They were getting more independent now that they were older, but if she had another baby she would soon be back to sleepless nights, making bottles and changing nappies again. It was just too much to take in. And what about the B and B business she had been hoping to set up? A new baby would certainly put the kibosh on that idea for quite some time – and yet . . . Her hand stroked her stomach wonderingly. A new baby might also mean the new start she had hoped for when they had moved into the house. She had no doubt that the girls would be tickled pink at the thought of having a new baby brother or sister.
As she slowly descended the stairs she heard a tap at the back door and moments later Laura walked into the kitchen with Beth. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked Jess. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
Jess thought that was rather a strange choice of words coming from Laura, and grinned ruefully as Beth stooped to fondle Alfie’s ears. She knew that she really shouldn’t say anything to anyone until she had spoken to Simon about it, but she was bursting to tell someone and Laura was there.
‘I er . . . actually, I just found out that I’m pregnant,’ she mumbled.
Laura gasped then seemed to leap across the room to her. ‘Why, that’s wonderful news . . . isn’t it?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Jess admitted. ‘And I don’t know what Simon is going to say about it. We hadn’t planned on having any more children.’
‘Well, it’s one of those things,’ Laura said matter-of-factly. ‘Sometimes the best-laid plans have a habit of backfiring on you. And what can he say? He obviously had a hand in it. You don’t make babies on your own. I bet he’ll be thrilled to bits when he gets used to the idea. I know I would be if it were me.’ Laura gave her a hug and hustled her onto the nearest chair. ‘You sit there,’ she told her like a mother hen. ‘You’ve had a bit of a shock and look like you could do with a hot drink. I’ll make you one.’
‘That’s a slight understatement, to say the least,’ Jess grinned. ‘It’s more like a bolt out of the blue. What are the girls going to say?’
‘I reckon they’ll be over the moon. But why don’t you stop worrying about what everyone else is going to say? How do you feel about it? You’re the one that’s got to carry it and do all the hard work once it arrives.’
‘I don’t know how I feel, to be honest.’ Jess fiddled with her wedding ring. ‘It’s all just so unexpected. I thought my baby days were well and truly behind me.’
Laura giggled as she spooned sugar into two mugs. ‘Then it just goes to show you don’t know everything, doesn’t it? When did you start to suspect that you might be pregnant?’
Jess quickly told her about the encounter with the gypsy woman the day before, and Laura whistled though her teeth. ‘Gypsies have been known to have the second sight for thousands of years, and that woman obviously saw something, didn’t she?’
‘She even told me that it was going to be a boy,’ Jess answered, feeling strangely detached from everything. It was as if this was happening to someone else and not her.
‘Let’s hope she was right about that as well then. Just think how cool it would be to have a son after two daughters.’
‘Will you do me a favour?’ Jess suddenly asked.
‘Of course, what is it?’
‘Will you not say anything to anyone about this until I’ve had time to speak to Simon?’
/>
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Laura promised. ‘When are you going to tell him?’
‘I doubt I’ll get a chance until he gets home this evening, unless he pops back for anything.’
Laura plonked down on to the chair opposite and squeezed Jess’s hand. ‘Will you please stop looking as if the end of the world is nigh?’ she asked. ‘Just think how many people there are out there who can’t have any children. They’d cut off their little fingers to be in your position.’
Jess suddenly felt guilty. Laura had once told her that one of her biggest regrets had been not being able to have any more babies after Beth. The news she had just told her must be cutting her like a knife, and yet she was putting a brave face on for her.
When she managed a wobbly smile, Laura patted her hand. ‘That’s better,’ she said approvingly. ‘Now why don’t you give yourself time to get used to the idea, and then cook a nice romantic meal this evening just for two, and then tell Simon. I could feed the two girls if you like and give you both a bit of space.’
Jess’s guilt intensified. She had always had a niggling suspicion that something might be going on between Laura and Simon, but if her reaction to this news was anything to go by, she had been sorely off the mark.
‘I appreciate the offer but it isn’t as simple as that,’ she confided. ‘Simon is rolling in at all hours at the moment, so a romantic meal for two might be quite hard to organise.’
‘All right then. Tonight tell him that you have something important to talk to him about tomorrow and give him a time you’d like him to be home for.’
Jess grinned ruefully. Simon was his own master and not at all good at doing as he was told. If Jess were to order him home for a certain time he would probably stay out late just to make a point. But she didn’t want to hurt her kindly neighbour’s feelings, so she told her, ‘Leave it with me. I’ll figure something out.’
She then changed the subject and Laura told her how she was getting on with tracing her family tree. ‘It’s really quite fascinating when you get into it,’ she told her. ‘And the Fentons’ family tree is too, seeing as I only live at the end of the drive. It’s interesting to know who has lived here over the years and I’ve found quite a bit out. You might like to have a look at it when I’ve done as much as I can on it.’
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