The midwife and Gracie made short work of changing the bed and tidying Abby up while Nicholas held his daughter, cooing and murmuring sweet nothings as though there was no one else in the room. It was magic to Abby’s ears. He would be a wonderful father. He was a wonderful man altogether. And a great doctor. She’d been sorry at first that Nicholas’s war injuries had meant he had been forced to give up the career he loved as a surgeon, but after a while she’d realized that as a GP he had a very special gift for dealing with people.
Once Abby was well enough, she had worked with him as the practice nurse and seen first hand how Nicholas’s patients adored him. The practice had grown rapidly, and now Nicholas employed three more doctors along with a nurse, who had taken Abby’s place once she had become pregnant, and a receptionist and office girl.
They had moved out of the old premises so that it could be converted to accommodate the expanding practice, and had bought a pretty little house on the outskirts of the town with a huge garden overlooking rolling countryside. Gracie had moved with them, of course, and was enjoying her twilight years fussing over Abby and Nicholas and Bailey. And now she had the baby too, and was going to thoroughly enjoy her role as honorary grandma.
Nicholas, at Abby’s prompting, had written to his parents shortly after she had returned home. She had hated the idea that he was estranged from them because of her, and had urged him to let bygones be bygones, if only for the sake of any children they might have in the future who would miss out on having a grandmother and grandfather. They had received a curt and offensive letter in return, which had sealed the future as far as Nicholas was concerned. Gerald had written that he had made a new will, and a distant cousin was now his heir. If, in the future, Nicholas came to his senses and realized where his true loyalties lay, the will could be revoked, but only, of course, on the dissolution of Nicholas’s disastrous marriage.
They had shown the letter to Wilbert when he and Robin and Rachel and the children had paid one of their visits, and her grandfather had summed up what they were all thinking in his own inimitable way. Handing the letter back to Nicholas, he had patted the younger man on the arm. ‘Lad, I wouldn’t give that beggar the drippings from me nose and you’re better off without him. You’ve given him every chance as far as I can see, and you’ll find he’ll want you afore you want him. Wipe the dust off your feet and put it behind you now. You can lay your head on the pillow at night with a clear conscience, which is more than that evil old blighter can do.’
Nicholas had nodded. He hadn’t wanted to write to his father in the first place and had only succumbed because Abby had become distressed about the whole thing, but the letter had convinced her that nothing more could be done so perhaps that was a good thing. Abby’s family was his family, and Robin the brother he’d never had. He was content with that. More than content.
It was Abby who now murmured as she looked up at her husband, ‘Will you write and let your parents know they have a granddaughter?’
Very gently, his voice soft, he said, ‘No, my darling, I will not. Not even for you. I have drawn a line under my past life, and you and Molly are the present and the future. Please be with me in this, my sweet.’ He had never told her what Gerald had said the last time he had come to the house, the year before the war had finished, but the word his father had used about any children he and Abby might have had severed something deep inside concerning his parents. ‘Flyblow’. It was a word intended as a deep insult, much worse than ‘bastard’ or other such terms, suggesting something horribly tainted and defiled. Nicholas looked at his daughter’s infinitely sweet and innocent face, the perfection and sheer beauty of her making him want to weep anew. He didn’t want his parents within a hundred miles of his family.
Abby reached out and took his hand, his other arm cradling their daughter. ‘I had to ask,’ she whispered, ‘but I’m glad you feel that way. I don’t know if it’s right to be glad, but I’m glad anyway.’
‘It’s right.’ He bent and kissed her, his heart in his lips.
She reached up her arm and held him close for a few moments, knowing she was the most blessed woman in the world. They kissed again, and when he had straightened, she said, ‘Would you send Delia up? I know she would love to see Molly.’ Delia had married her Hans eighteen months after she and Abby had returned to England, but the downside of this, to the two women, was that Delia had gone to live in Norway. Hans’s family had extensive business interests there, and it wouldn’t have made sense for them to make their home anywhere else. Nonetheless, Abby and Delia hated the fact that so many miles were between them, but due to Hans’s wealth, which had been breathtakingly more than either woman could have envisaged, Delia and Hans had been able to come over to England several times since the wedding. Expecting that the baby would be born in the first week or so of December, Abby and Nicholas had invited the couple to come and stay over Christmas.
‘Of course.’ The midwife and Gracie were already bustling out of the bedroom, presumably to give them a few moments alone, and Nicholas tenderly placed the baby back into her mother’s arms. Delia and Hans had been asked to be godparents, and were thrilled at the prospect. ‘I love you more than words can say,’ he murmured. ‘Thank you for our daughter.’
‘And I love you so much. We’re so lucky, aren’t we.’ There was a catch in her voice.
‘We are.’ He didn’t want to leave them, his wife and his daughter, but Delia had earned her place in sharing this time with Abby.
It was only a minute or so before Delia opened the door and tiptoed into the bedroom. Abby couldn’t help but smile at her friend’s stance. ‘It’s all right, you don’t have to walk on eggshells. I’ve had a baby, that’s all.’
‘Oh, Abby, she’s gorgeous.’ Delia was all misty-eyed and emotional, the more so because shortly before they had come over to England she had found out she was expecting their first child. ‘And doesn’t she look like Nicholas?’
‘I know. There was him expecting a little girl would look like me and she’s the spitting image of him. I haven’t pointed that out to him yet.’
‘He’d love her whatever she looks like. He’s over the moon. He’s just poured two huge whiskies to celebrate for him and Hans. Honestly, Abby, he’s going to be pie-eyed.’
Abby giggled. She was feeling light-headed with happiness.
‘But that midwife! She’s a bit of a dragon, isn’t she? When I said I’d bring a whisky up for us two she looked at me as though I was something the cat had dragged in. “It wouldn’t be good for baby,” she said. “Mother can have a glass of stout to help with the milk, but that’s all.” I mean, stout!’ Delia wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘That’s what old men drink. When I said that she went even more uppity. It appears she’s been drinking it for years.’
Abby was rocking with laughter now and so was Delia.
It was a few minutes later, when they had oohed and aahed some more over Molly and Delia had had a hold of her goddaughter, that Delia murmured softly, ‘New life, Abby. Despite all that has happened, new life has come into the world. There were lots of times in the worst of it that I didn’t think life would go on, but it has. I just wish Hilda and John and the others could be here to see it.’
‘I know.’ The two of them looked at each other with perfect understanding.
Hilda had never recovered from her weakened state and had died in India, despite all that the medical team there had done for her. And so many more of their friends and colleagues had made the ultimate sacrifice. When she’d arrived home from the Far East, Abby had found out that Sybil had died from complications with her injuries, and dear Kitty had been killed while nursing the troops in North Africa.
Together, they looked down at little Molly, who was back in her mother’s arms, as Abby said softly, ‘I pray this war was the war to end all wars. That lessons have been learned. Ordinary men and women don’t want to fight each other, do they? Not really. Most of the people I know just want to live together in p
eace, enjoying family life and bringing up their children the best they can.’
Delia was sitting at the head of the bed and now she put her arm round Abby’s shoulders, and the two leaned against each other for a while, a host of memories flooding their minds.
In the grate the fire spat and crackled as it sent bluered flames shooting up the chimney in a shower of sparks, and the wintry afternoon outside the window made the inside more cosy. Downstairs the faint refrain of Christmas carols being played on the wireless filtered through, and the two women heard Bailey barking joyfully in the garden, no doubt racing around crazily in the snow as he was apt to do.
After a bit, Delia stood up reluctantly. ‘I’d better go and help Gracie with the evening meal and leave you to have a little nap. You must be exhausted.’
Funnily enough, now that Molly was here and all was well, Abby didn’t feel as tired as she expected, but she did want a few moments alone.
Once Delia had gone downstairs, Abby slid out of bed, still with Molly in her arms. Walking over to the window, she looked out into the snowy afternoon, her mind skimming back over the years to that Christmas Eve that had changed her life for ever. She pictured her mother’s face in her mind as she whispered, ‘You’ve got a granddaughter, Mam. A little girl named Molly and she’s beautiful, like you. I miss you, I miss you so much but I shall see to it she hears about the wonderful grandma she’ll never meet. And her granda too. I know he loved you, Mam, and I hope you’re together, wherever you are, and happy.’
Sinking down in the big old armchair set at an angle to the window and with Molly cradled in her arms, she gazed at the huge fat feathery flakes falling from a laden sky, and began to hum softly, and as she did so she could hear her mother’s voice singing the lullaby that was part of her:
‘There’s snowflakes in the wind, my bonny babby,
Snowflakes in the wind, my little lamb,
But don’t you fret, don’t you cry,
The sun will come out by and by,
And till then I’ll keep you warm, my bonny babby.’
‘I love you, Mam. I always will.’ Abby shut her eyes, a tear stealing down her cheek, and for a moment, just a moment, she felt the touch of a soft hand against her face and could smell the scent of the Pears soap her mother had favoured. She didn’t open her eyes for fear the moment would evaporate, but a sense of peace that was from outside herself flooded her innermost being.
Her mam was still with her, she saw that now. She would always be with her because love was the most powerful force on earth. It hadn’t been a final parting that long-ago Christmas Eve. She would see her mother again one day, she knew it now, in a place where death was just a memory and tears were no more . . .
She looked up as Nicholas entered the room, and such was the expression on her face that he came swiftly to her side, saying, ‘What is it? What’s happened?’
Abby had been unaware of the tears on her cheeks but her voice was trembling with emotion when she murmured, ‘Nothing really, it’s just that I see something I should have known a long time ago.’
As he bent down and lifted her and the baby out of the chair and carried Abby over to the bed, scolding her gently for getting up, she leaned her head against his breast and let the solid reassuring bulk of him envelop her. Just like her mother before her she had chosen her own path, and look at the special place it had led her to.
She let Nicholas take Molly and place her in the crib next to the bed, whereupon the baby gave another huge yawn and then went promptly to sleep. They smiled at each other. ‘She’s had a busy day,’ Nicholas said huskily, ‘and so have you, my sweet. Now snuggle down and have a nap before Gracie brings your tray up.’ He tucked her up in bed for all the world as though she was a little girl, and then kissed the tip of her nose. ‘Sleep,’ he ordered firmly. ‘All right?’
‘All right.’ He had his hand on the door handle when she spoke again. ‘Nicholas?’
‘Yes?’ He turned to see her smiling a smile so radiant it took his breath away.
‘This is the most wonderful Christmas.’
‘The start of many, my love. The start of many.’ He shut the door behind him, leaving her alone with their daughter.
The room was bathed in deep winter twilight, and from the little fireplace the glow of the coals and the small flames licking round their base sent flickering shadows over the walls. The softly falling snow outside the window, the little grunts and snuffles the baby was making in her crib, and the comforting warmth of the bed were lulling Abby to sleep, but she fought it. She wanted to remember every moment of this day for ever and it was too precious to be wasted.
Drowsily, more asleep than awake, she began to sing gently: ‘There’s snowflakes in the wind, my bonny babby, snowflakes in the wind, my little lamb,’ before whispering, ‘I love you, Mam.’
She fell asleep with the words on her lips and a blissful smile on her face . . .
Epilogue
1949
The spring day was raw, but the hard, relentless snowstorms that had battered the north-east over the previous months was over, and a weak April sun peeped hesitantly from a grey-blue sky.
The building site some distance along the road from the Hemingway hospital in Galashiels was unusually quiet for eleven o’clock in the morning. The area was being cleared so that work could begin on the new housing estate scheduled to be built there. Some of the surrounding villages had protested about the ancient woodland and forest area being bulldozed, but their objections had not been upheld. With Hitler’s bombs having caused an acute housing shortage by devastating large parts of the country, added to which no one had ventured into the dense woodland for decades as it was impossible to fight your way through the tangle of briars, brambles and other hazards, what was the loss of habitat for a few badgers and foxes and the like, compared to homes for men, women and children? it was argued. Reluctantly, the locals had accepted defeat.
But the objections had delayed the work from beginning when it should have done the previous year, much to the fury of the owner of the building firm, and by the time all the i’s had been dotted and the t’s crossed, winter had set in. This had meant a serious delay on the projected timescale, something that was very much to the forefront of the owner’s mind as he now stood talking to his foreman at the site.
Josiah Howard was a tough, hard-bitten and ruthless individual. He had dragged himself up by his bootlaces – as he liked to inform folk at the drop of a hat. He was immensely proud of having risen out of the slums of Edinburgh to the exalted position of town councillor, with a splendid detached residence in the suburbs and each of his four children at private school.
Josiah had a reputation, justly earned, of letting nothing and no one get in his way. In that regard, he was as formidable as the savage-looking bulldozer standing some yards away.
His steely-blue eyes narrowed, he stared at his foreman. ‘You say it was only Barney Croft who saw this?’
‘Aye, I told you, Mr Howard. Barney came to find me straight away and I told him to keep his mouth shut and say nowt to no one until I’d had a word with you. I sent the rest of the lads off for an early lunch. They’ll all be in the Frog and Fiddler wetting their whistles.’
‘Good, good. And you think this lad, Barney, will keep it to himself?’
‘Oh, aye, for sure, Mr Howard. He’s a good lad, is Barney. Besides which, I made it plain if he opens his gob to the others he’ll find himself out of a job. And no one pays better round here than you, Mr Howard,’ the foreman added ingratiatingly. This had the added advantage of being true. Josiah had learned early in his rise up the ladder that loyalty could be bought. ‘Barney’s got a young family,’ the foreman went on, ‘and his wife had another bairn only the other week. He knows which side his bread is buttered, sure enough.’
‘I hope so, Doug.’ Josiah’s voice was grim. ‘I don’t want any more delays on this damn project – it’s turned into a white elephant as it is. If we’d managed to get th
e shells up before the winter we could have had the men fitting ’em out and what have you, rather than sitting round on their backsides on half-pay for weeks on end. I could wring the necks of those beggars who twittered on about wildlife and rare flowers and the rest of it. Half sharp, the lot of them.’
Douglas Banks nodded. He hadn’t got to where he was today without being a yes man, and no one ever argued with the boss. There were rumours that the one or two who had tried it in the past had been made to regret it. ‘So how do you want to handle this, Mr Howard?’
Josiah looked down at the bones. There was no doubt it was the remains of a human skeleton; there were even the remnants of what had been clothing still visible. And the skull was more or less intact and a few other bones were still there, but plenty of others must have been carried off by wild animals. He glanced at the leather belt still hanging from a branch of the tree under which the bones were scattered. ‘Damn funny that, an old belt being stuck up there.’
‘Perhaps—’ Doug hesitated. He had learned over the years not to say too much. His boss could be a funny blighter.
‘Aye?’
‘Do you think he might have done himself in, if it was a man, that is?’
Josiah looked hard at his foreman. It was the obvious conclusion but not one he was prepared to tolerate. A suicide would mean it was highly likely someone in the surrounding area had been reported missing at some time or other. The police might have to be involved, who knows? Not only that, but the law would put an embargo on the houses going ahead until they were satisfied they’d got all their damn clues or whatever they looked for. There’d be an investigation at the very least taking time, time he couldn’t afford. Time was money.
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