‘Hard graft?’
‘Yes, of course. You do work hard. I’ve always admired you for that.’ Dicky put his knife and fork back down again. ‘It’s no good, I’ve no appetite. Whatever am I going to do?’
‘You’re going to eat your dinner and get washed and changed and go to Scouts. It’s Scout night and that’s what you’re doing.’
‘OK! OK! Why are you always so practical? Can’t we just talk for once?’
‘When I’ve eaten my dinner, we’ll talk for half an hour and then you’ve got to go.’
She silently carried on eating her dinner without so much as even a glance in his direction. She ate her tinned fruit and ice-cream, finished her lager and sat back. ‘First and foremost I want you to be happy …’
Dicky shook his head. ‘There’s you to consider, can’t leave you out of it.’
‘If you being happy makes me happy then we’re all right, aren’t we? You won’t be happy without those boys. They’re your life’s work, not some piddling office job in a factory, though you can’t manage without the money it’s still not what you really want to do. So you’ve got to stick at that and you’ve got to stick at Scouts. Question is do you want Georgie so much that you’re willing to give it all up?’
‘I want the lot. You, Georgie, the job and the Scouts. Greedy aren’t I?’
‘No, you’re a man, it’s to be expected.’
‘Bel!’
‘With my two jobs I could just about manage, so don’t worry about me. You do your own thing.’
‘But where would you live?’
‘Haven’t worked that out yet. But what about Georgie? How could she live here, with Bryn just down the road. It wouldn’t be easy.’
Dicky finished his drink put down the glass and heaved a great sigh. He got up went round the table and put his arm round Bel. ‘Where would I be without you?’
Bel pushed him off. ‘Don’t go all sentimental it doesn’t suit you, Dicky. You’ve fallen in love with a married woman and she can’t live here and you can’t leave easily because we’ve a mortgage as long as your arm for this place, and I don’t want to lose you, and you don’t want to lose me and altogether you’ve made a damned mess of things, and all you’re doing is wanting me to solve it for you. Well, I can’t. Frankly I wish at the bottom of me that we’d told the truth about not being husband and wife when we first came here. Don’t you?’
‘With hindsight, yes I do. But we both felt so vulnerable it seemed the safest thing to say nothing at all at the time.’
‘They’d have got used to us, we know that now but we didn’t then.’
‘That’s right. Not at the time. So we’ve made the mess and I don’t know how to get us out of it.’
‘Neither do I!’ She burst into tears, jumped up and struggled up the spiral staircase to the bedroom, leaving Dicky bewildered. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Bel cry. She must hurt very badly indeed. All this trying to be reasonable. It was her kind heart that was making her try to see it from his point of view. She didn’t want to stand in his way because she loved him so much. But she didn’t want it to happen; didn’t want to lose him.
So much for a week to think things over. He was getting nowhere. Every word Bel had said was true. While he cleared the dishes into the kitchen he thought about it. The easiest thing to do would be to give up Georgie, the pain this idea caused made him almost double up with anguish. He couldn’t! He couldn’t! Not Georgie! Not to see her again. Ever again. No, that wasn’t the way. He checked the time on the kitchen clock, the duck was almost at seven o’clock. When it reached half past it would be in the pond. He’d bought that ridiculous clock for Bel years ago and she’d never been parted from it. His mouth trembled. Dear Bel! Dear Bel! How he loved her, how he relied on her. And here she was giving up everything so he could be happy. He didn’t deserve her.
Dicky went upstairs to get washed and changed. As he got to the top his spirits began to lift. In his mind he started running over all the things he had planned for tonight for the boys. When he got back he’d ring Georgie, just to say good night. Saying good night wouldn’t be breaking his promise, would it? Peter had said don’t see each other, well, he wouldn’t be, would he? A whole week without being with her, his spirits dipped again. Nothing would be solved and he’d go circling round, pulled this way and that for the rest of his life. One thing he did know he’d regret it for ever if he didn’t get Georgie. Those two days they’d spent away together had been the happiest he could remember in all his life. Being with her had added such zip and excitement; every step they took, every stair they climbed, every view they admired had that extra zest.
He examined his face in the bathroom mirror. Somehow it didn’t seem the kind of face that should be able to be in love, or indeed still less inspire it in anyone else. As he shaved he remembered her fingers trailing through his hair, her lips kissing his, her hands caressing his body. The ecstasy his memories brought him caused him to shudder. He’d done it before with others, but never with such joy, such abandonment and such honest truth. Love! You thought about it, imagined it, had even convinced yourself in the past that you were in love, but when you were, really truly in love, then there was no mistaking it. Briefly he wished it would be Georgie in there in the bedroom when he went to get his uniform out of the wardrobe. Then the sense of disloyalty to Bel this brought about made him feel guilty.
When he got in the bedroom, Bel had gone. He listened and could hear her running the kitchen taps. Dear Bel. How could he manage without her?
That afternoon Peter had called to see Muriel and Ralph about a reading they were doing for him in church the following Sunday.
‘Do come in, Peter. Tea?’
‘No thanks, I’ve drunk enough tea today to float a battleship. Everywhere I go they all seem to think I’m in need of restoration, but I think it’s much more likely they’re after an eye witness report of Saturday’s events!’
Ralph chuckled. ‘Well, you must confess you were the hero of the hour. It was absolutely shocking and the ripples haven’t stopped yet, have they?’
Muriel joined them just as Ralph finished speaking. ‘It’s about the reading is it, Peter?’
‘That’s right.’
Ralph said, ‘Dicky and Bel not being married was a complete surprise to you too, was it?’
‘Oh yes, it was.’
‘Muriel and I were asked to sign the petition, they thought it would carry more weight, but we declined.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘Though they do have a point.’
Muriel said, ‘I don’t think it matters, we can’t afford to lose him.’
Ralph, surprised by her emphatic support of Dicky, said, ‘I thought you agreed with me?’
Muriel looked embarrassed. ‘Well, I kind of do, but he does love her very much.’
‘Does he?’
Muriel fidgeted with her beads, crossed her knees, looked anywhere but at either of them and then said, ‘He told me.’
Ralph astonished at her duplicity said, ‘You spoke to him after I’d said you should keep right out of it? When?’
‘A while ago.’
‘I see.’
‘It’s very hard, Ralph, when you love like he does and after all he’s not entirely wrong in doing so is he, him not being married?’
‘No, I suppose not, but when you talked to him you didn’t know that did you?’ She didn’t answer him. ‘Did you?’
Muriel looked to Peter for support. ‘I … I … perhaps I should have said.’
Peter asked her what it was she should have said.
‘That I guessed they weren’t married. Dicky told me in a kind of a roundabout way, when I spoke to him. Perhaps I should have told you.’
Ralph was appalled. ‘So you’ve known for weeks and never said a word.’
She’d been looking at the floor during her revelation, but now Muriel brought her eyes up to look straight at Ralph. ‘Yes. I have.’
‘But, Muriel, what about his loyalty to Bel? He can’t just throw that away without a backward glance, now can he?’
Muriel shook her head.
Peter said, ‘Everyone’s making a lot too much fuss about all this. It would have been better if it hadn’t come out, no one would have been any the wiser and the village would have carried on without a thought of asking Dicky to resign. As it is, Mrs Charter-Plackett spilled the beans, and it’s all too late. Don’t worry, Muriel, at least you have the virtue of having kept it to yourself. Now about the Bible reading.’ He got the paper out of his briefcase and pressed on with his explanation of how he wanted things done on Sunday.
After he left, Muriel said, ‘I need to finish the ironing,’ and stood up to leave.
‘Muriel!’
‘Yes!’
‘My dear, I’m not angry, just surprised. I thought we had no secrets.’
‘We haven’t, not really. But you’d said we should keep out of it and the chance came up and I feel for people who are in love. Before I met you again, I would have been shocked, truly shocked at all this, but I can understand now, and it is hard when you love and you mayn’t and you want to and you can’t help it and you can’t keep quiet about it and you want all the world to know when you know it shouldn’t.’ Her voice trailed off rather lamely and she finished by saying, ‘If you know what I mean.’
‘I do know what you mean, and I love your dear kind heart and I’m proud you see the world in such a kindly manner, and I can understand how you understand how Dicky feels. I’m honoured that having met me and loved me, you understand the passions involved. You’re a very understanding loving person and I love you all the more for it. Dear me, that’s almost as confused as what you have just said but we both know what each other means don’t we?’
‘Oh yes! I thought you would have been annoyed if I’d told you I’d spoken to him so I …’
Ralph stood up and put his arms round Muriel. ‘No more! have done! Now we both know we love people to be in love like we are, and have the happiness we share.’
‘The trouble is I don’t know how the four of them can possibly solve it. Something or someone will have to be sacrificed.’
‘Only they can solve it my dear, we’re lucky. Not everyone finds the path to love as easily as we did.’
‘Oh yes, Ralph! What a good day it was when you came back and found me.’
He kissed her and then said, ‘We came very close to drifting apart, my dear, remember, you refused me first of all.’
‘Don’t remind me.’ Muriel sighed. ‘I must have been mad. That’s what I mean, about knowing about love, I didn’t then, but now I do. I do sincerely hope that they find a solution to all this, though what it will be I can’t really think. It alters your vision of things doesn’t it? Love?’
Chapter 17
Grandmama had rung all the people who’d signed her petition and finally convinced them that they needed to attend a meeting at her cottage to discuss strategy, that very night. They’d never actually assembled all together before, because when she’d sought support for her petition she’d simply called at their houses and they’d willingly signed as a result of her persuasive tongue. Now she had to get them to make a volte-face.
She was surprised to find Sheila Bissett one of the first on her doorstep.
‘Come in, Sheila, do. So lovely of you to make the effort and struggle round. How many weeks now before the plaster’s off?’
‘Two weeks, with any luck. Shall I be glad! Just to be able to take a bath will be a luxury.’
Mentally Grandmama wrinkled her nose at the prospect of Sheila not taking a bath.
‘What is it you want us for? I thought we’d done our bit?’
‘I’ll tell you when they’ve all arrived. Now, where is it best to put you?’
‘I’ll sit here with this little footstool for my leg. Can you take my crutches?’
‘Of course. Sit down. I’ll make coffee in a moment, when the others come.’
‘Georgie’s not here then?’
‘Georgie? Why should she be?’
‘I saw her in your garden. I spend a lot of time looking out of the window you see. Nothing much else I can do at the moment.’
Grandmama swallowed hard. ‘Well, yes, she is, just for a little while. She needed somewhere to hide.’
‘And she chose to hide here with you?’
Overtones of their previous battle could be heard in Sheila’s voice but Grandmama was saved from answering because the doorbell rang and Thelma and Valda were in the sitting-room almost before Grandmama had invited them in.
As they seated themselves, Vince Jones arrived and Venetia and so the little cottage sitting-room was filled to bursting point.
Grandmama rapped with the poker on the brass fender. ‘Excuse me. Thank you! I think we’ll discuss the business of the meeting first and then I’ll serve coffee.’
The ensuing conversation took all of Grandmama’s diplomatic skills, and then some to resolve anything at all. Her complete change of heart took them all totally by surprise. She finally had to talk to them about their Christian duty, a course of action which made her uneasy, because she wasn’t sure it was or maybe it was, after all Peter wanted her to do it and he couldn’t be more Christian if he tried.
At last she’d persuaded Vince Jones and the Senior sisters, leaving Sheila Bissett who was being awkward on purpose and Venetia Mayer who saw it as her mission in life to protect the young since she’d become assistant youth club leader and attended every morning service without fail after her fright over the witchcraft incident.
Venetia fluffed her thick jet black hair, crossed and re-crossed her slender legs much to Vince Jones’ delight and uttered the one question she, Grandmama, couldn’t answer. ‘But Mrs Charter-Plackett, it is only days since you gave us a very convincing argument for signing the petition, who or what has changed your mind? I haven’t changed mine, so why have you? You haven’t yet really told me why I should.’
‘Charity. Christian charity. Plain, simple back-to-basics, Christian charity. We’re changing our minds for the greater good. Yes, definitely the greater good. Dicky is the best Scout leader any troup could hope to have. There can’t be a troup in the whole county with so many boys and such a long waiting list. You try getting a boy in at the moment. The question is if he goes can we find someone to replace him? Any volunteers?’ She looked round them, challenging them to offer their services.
Sheila wouldn’t surrender. ‘Well, I disagree. What is the good of having a Scout leader who doesn’t conduct himself as he should. Things are so lax nowadays, standards should be upheld and I’d be amazed if the Rector wants to keep him anyway. I’m sure he must have fallen on our letter with a sigh of relief.’
Too quickly Grandmama said, ‘He didn’t.’
Quick as a flash Sheila saw the situation. ‘Oh I see, it’s the Rector who’s behind all this, isn’t it? He’s made you see the error of your ways, hasn’t he?’
‘I did agree with his point of view.’
Sheila sighed. ‘I know just what you mean. I swear he could make me say black was white if he’d a mind.’ Not to be too easily persuaded however she said, ‘I wish you’d been more honest from the beginning of this meeting, wish you’d admitted it was him behind your change of heart.’
Grandmama’s lips pressed into a straight line, what an aggravating woman this Sheila really was, seeing everything so clearly just at the wrong moment. ‘Right. Well, it’s all out in the open then. Seeing as the Rector wants us to withdraw the letter then we must. We’ve no alternative.’
Sheila, musing on the times when Peter had persuaded her to do things she’d never intended, decided to give in because she knew faced with Peter himself she’d have given in immediately. ‘Very well then. So be it. But you must understand it’s only because the Rector wants it that I’m giving in, not because of you. I withdraw my signature as from now.’ Mischievously aware she was scoring a point off Grandmama, Shei
la said, ‘Those in agreement with me raise a hand.’
She looked round the group and they signified their capitulation so the meeting was taken clean out of Grandmama’s hands.
Well satisfied, Sheila cried. ‘Carried! Now for the coffee. Sorry I can’t help. My leg, you know.’
So the following morning Grandmama called at the rectory to tell Peter he could tear up the letter. Caroline answered the door. ‘Do come in Mrs Charter-Plackett, how nice to see you. Is it Peter you’re wanting? He’s not in I’m afraid.’
‘Well, yes, but I’m sure you could pass the message on for me.’
Caroline smiled, ‘Well, I’ll try!’
‘Tell the Rector that I’ve managed to get every one of the signatories to withdraw and he can tear up the letter. It took some doing let me tell you, but we made it in the end.’
‘Come in and sit down, I’m feeling quite lonely, Sylvia’s gone home to supervise the washing-machine repair man, Peter’s out, the children are at school and well, I’d enjoy having someone to talk to.’
Grandmama accepted. Caroline took her into the sitting-room and invited Grandmama to sit on the sofa while she took one of the chairs.
‘It was Sheila Bissett, we don’t see eye to eye after what happened you see, you know about the Harvest meeting. The others were easy to persuade, except for Venetia she proved more difficult. She’s changed hasn’t she, such a lot.’
‘Yes, she has. Peter will be glad. He’s so concerned about the four of them.’
‘Aren’t we all. Georgie …’
‘Someone said she was staying with you.’
‘She is. I feel so sorry for her trapped in a bad marriage. I know we make these promises for better or for worse and you mean them at the time but heavens above there is a limit to suffering. You’re looking a little better than you have.’
‘Mostly, yes, thank you, this blessed chemotherapy is crippling me though I’m afraid. Absolutely knocking me for six. I’m having some really dreadful times, so bad I sometimes really wonder if it’s worth it. Far worse than the operation. You know about it then?’
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