Shouting for order, the chairman smiled, said he considered the meeting a rousing success and suggested they all stood to sing the national anthem before leaving to continue with the discussions in the newly formed individual groups.
* * *
While the meeting went on, Johnny was on a ship making his way home across the channel. The darkness hid the small ship from some dangers but others lurked below and he stood on deck wondering whether he would survive the perilous journey and see Hannah again, or whether one of the unseen U-boats would destroy the ship and the men whom it carried.
He knew that even if he did survive this journey, he wouldn’t be home for more than a few days. He was being sent to Scotland for more training before being sent to Italy – or at least that was the whispered rumour surmised from the snippets of unreliable information they had received.
He arrived safely and after leaving his kit with his father and quickly eating a meal while catching up on the news, he went to see Hannah. The following day they arranged a marriage by special license.
With no time for the niceties, it would be a small affair, with only the family, including her still disapproving parents, and the girls, for whom she had promised to make very special dresses. Hannah’s parents refused to discuss it. All they did was remind her that in the eyes of the church she was still a married woman and what she was doing was a sin.
Slowly Hannah rolled up her sleeve to reveal the scar left by one of her husband’s drunken rages.
‘Where were the eyes of the church then, Mam?’ she asked.
‘You’re married. What you’re doing is not right and you’ll never be happy until you tell this Johnny Castle goodbye and return to your rightful husband. You can’t build happiness on the destruction of someone else’s.’
Their remarks were hurtful but with so much to do to arrange the wedding in so short a time, she pushed her parents’ attitude aside and concentrated on the list of things she had to do.
* * *
Inexplicably, the news of the wedding upset Marged. It was the thought of having a family celebration without Eynon being present. She looked at the calendar and counted the days since she had last seen her son. It seemed like a lifetime.
Marged and Bleddyn, like most others in the town, spent a lot of time writing letters. Marged told herself that this was something cheerful to report. Bleddyn wrote to Taff, told him about the wedding and enclosed the note Hannah had written. And Marged wrote to Eynon.
She wrote every week. But the letters always came back, having been read, and with a note reminding her that if he should turn up, then it was her duty to inform the authorities. She ignored the warning, stacked them away for Eynon to read when he came back, pretended he was replying and wrote again, telling him that everything was all right.
She did receive an occasional card, signed in strange handwriting as though from a cousin, Ross, or a friend called Reginald, and even on one occasion from a girl called Bessie. She tried writing with her left hand, to see whether that explained the unusual writing. There was no news, just a sentence telling her he was all right and not to worry. After showing them to Huw, she hid them upstairs in the back of the wardrobe. One day he would be home and able to tell her everything that had happened. For now she would write and tell him about Johnny’s wedding, and pretend that he would soon be reading about it.
Johnny would be married in uniform and Hannah, defeated in her effort to treat the day as being in any way joyful by her mother’s constant reminders of her wrongdoing, decided on a brown dress and coat with a handbag rather than flowers or a prayer book.
Beth quickly persuaded her to change her mind and, with Marged a willing supporter, the three of them went shopping and bought her a pale blue dress worn with a silk scarf. Hannah also borrowed one of Lilly’s hats, which she decorated in the same trailing silk. She looked lovely and they all knew how thrilled Johnny would be when he met her at the register office. Flowers were ordered and Cyril the Snap promised to give them some photographs to treasure, which were paid for by Bleddyn.
‘You’re all so kind. You shouldn’t be doing all this,’ Hannah protested as Bleddyn gave her money to buy a gift for each of the girls.
‘You’re a Castle now,’ Bleddyn told her fondly. ‘And you’ll do us proud.’
The day was dry and bright and they walked to and from the register office along the busy roads past the shops, where shoppers stopped to look and admire the little girls following their mother and their new stepfather. Some clapped and Bleddyn hid a tear, and Johnny looked as proud as proud, and after a few yards walking with her head down, Hannah looked at him and smiled, forgot her mother’s bitter words and raised her head proudly, looking forward to a happy future as Mrs Johnny Castle.
There was no cake apart from a small sponge Marged and Audrey had swopped various rationed goods to make. A couple of ounces of tea for some sugar, a piece of bacon in exchange for some margarine. It somehow made everyone appreciate the spread more and several admitted that the wedding was happier than many they had attended in the past.
Lilly cried, of course, but no one was surprised. This was a moment she still dreamed about, and one that most knew would never happen, not with the child growing within her and no man willing to accept responsibility for it. Hannah left Johnny’s side for a moment and sat with her.
‘We’re cousins now, Lilly. I hope you’re as happy about that as I am. The girls are a part of your family and if you’re willing, I’d like them to call you Auntie Lilly.’
Bleddyn heard her and smiled. Hannah was an asset to the Castle family, he thought proudly. No mistake about that.
‘Johnny,’ he said to his son. ‘You’re a lucky devil and don’t forget it.’
‘How could I?’ Johnny smiled, putting an arm around his glowingly beautiful bride.
Eleven
‘We aren’t the only family of Pipers, for heaven’s sake!’ Marged said impatiently. Ever since Beth and the two girls had returned from the cemetery, the questions had come at her from all sides.
‘At least come and see it, Mam,’ Beth pleaded. ‘It could be a distant cousin. Families never keep in touch after the cousins grow up, do they?’
‘I haven’t the time to go off wandering around the cemetery to look at the grave of a stranger!’
‘You know something about it, don’t you?’ Huw accused. ‘Why else are you so angry?’
‘I’m not angry,’ she protested. ‘I just don’t want to give Myrtle and Maude any hope of finding their family. Too much time has passed and looking at gravestones isn’t the occupation for young girls.’
‘We’re talking about the child’s grave, someone called Piper.’ Beth frowned. ‘Nothing to do with Copp.’
‘You know what I mean. We’ll go exploring and they’ll be searching for some family that might not even belong to Myrtle and Maude. Plenty of families could be using those names.’
Beth knew her mother was deliberately misunderstanding her, trying to edge the discussion away from the Piper child and confusing her with talk about the Copp burial. Abandoning the attempt to get some information from her mother, she asked her father to go with her.
‘Why bother?’ he asked. ‘Your mother won’t help us solve the mystery even if we do go. What’ll be achieved, besides another argument with your mam?’
She decided to go alone. She still worked most lunchtimes and evenings at the chip shop, however, and with the days so brief and so dark, there wouldn’t be much time to go and examine the grave during the afternoon. With the weather a mixture of gusty wind, short showers and dark clouds, the prospect of visiting the eerie place without company was not very cheering.
The heavy clouds that day prevented anything resembling daylight. From the almost indistinguishable dawn, the sky was hidden, the houses were wrapped in heavy mist and there was only a sort of twilight that was uneased by shop or street lighting.
The hedges bordering the pavements as she approached the cem
etery were dripping with moisture and there were few people around. Her footsteps echoed back at her, and at times it sounded as though there was someone following her, as she forced herself to go on. She glanced around nervously, peering uselessly through the threatening gloom.
She almost turned back; the heavily ornamented iron gates and the rows of solemn graves were daunting in the semi-darkness. She walked briskly, purposefully, and headed straight for the area where the small grave lay, half hidden by the overgrown hedge.
To her surprise she saw fresh flowers there, bright in the surrounding gloom. She stopped and looked around, half expecting to see the person who had placed them there. But nothing stirred except the trees, moving in the wind, shedding the remnants of the recent shower.
Curious, she didn’t approach the grave but instead ran back to the main path where she saw a figure in the distance, a figure she knew.
‘Auntie Audrey,’ she called, running to join her. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Oh, I suppose it was the thought of that poor little grave you told us about, neglected, no one to remember, so I took some flowers.’
‘Why didn’t you say? We could have come together,’ Beth said.
‘You know what your mam’s like. If she said we shouldn’t bother it’s best not to tell her.’
Beth laughed. ‘Not scared of our Mam, are you?’
‘Best to avoid arguments, don’t you think?’
‘Will you come back with me? I thought I’d look around the area in case there are other Pipers buried there. Families are buried together when possible.’
‘I’ll come back with you, dear, but I don’t think you’ll find any other family near by.’
‘You’ve looked, have you?’
‘Yes, I’ve looked.’
They cleaned the stone and pulled some more of the stubborn ivy off the small plot, and Beth suggested they came again, this time armed with scissors and a sharp knife, so they could cut back some of the brambles and make the memorial more visible.
That evening, when Beth and her parents were finishing their meal, Audrey came with Myrtle and Maude, and Olive and Ronnie.
‘We have news for you,’ Ronnie said, limping in and sitting beside his father. ‘Tell them, Olive, love.’
‘I – we – we’re going to have a baby,’ Olive said shyly. ‘Some time in July.’
‘Bang slam in the middle of the busiest month!’ Huw said, smiling to show he was teasing.
‘That’s what Ronnie said!’ Olive laughed.
‘Congratulations, to both of you,’ Marged said, hugging them.
‘Yes, well done,’ Huw added.
Audrey said nothing, remembering the tiny grave and the tragedy of that birth.
‘Such a happy occasion, a time to celebrate,’ Marged went on, unaware of her sister’s distress.
‘Yes,’ Audrey said quietly, ‘a happy time, isn’t it, Marged, except when a baby is born out of wedlock. Then it’s a different story, isn’t it?’
‘What d’you mean?’ Huw asked. ‘These two have been married for ages, there’s no problem there.’
‘That little grave the girls found—’
‘Not now, Audrey,’ Marged interrupted quickly. ‘Talk about someone else’s problems another time, not now when we’re celebrating Olive and Ronnie’s news.’
She spoke sharply in a tone that would normally have silenced Audrey, but Huw said, ‘No, don’t let’s forget it. There’s no harm in reminding ourselves that we’re the lucky ones and others don’t have such fortunate lives.’
‘Not now,’ Marged almost shouted, but Huw looked at Audrey with a determined frown.
‘You know something about the grave of that child, don’t you?’
‘The grave is that of my son. Ten weeks and two days he lived. Wilf and I were to have married that year but Mam forbade it, insisting that Wilf, being a bank official, wouldn’t help in the family business and I couldn’t be spared.’
Utter silence greeted her words. Beth went over and put her arms around her aunt. No one else moved. Huw stared at Marged and waited for her to speak. But it was Beth who broke the painful silence.
‘Why didn’t you tell us before, Auntie Audrey? You shouldn’t have kept it to yourself. We all lost the baby, he was a cousin for me and Lilly and Ronnie and our Eynon.’
‘I couldn’t tell you because I was constantly reminded of how I had disgraced the family name,’ Audrey said harshly. ‘The neighbours were told that I was looking after the baby because his mother had died. Wilf wasn’t allowed to see him, not once. And it was not until after little Bobbie died that we were allowed to meet. Then it was only when we had a chaperone, usually Mam.’
‘You knew?’ Huw asked Marged, who looked away, up into the corner of the room, refusing to comment.
‘Yes, Marged knew,’ Audrey answered for her. ‘She supported Mam and Dad at the time and has since refused to discuss it. I needed to grieve. But they wouldn’t even allow me to do that.’
Beth stared at her aunt, seeing the coldness, the bitterness in her usually gentle face, the dry eyes that sparkled, not with tears, but with the pain of the memories.
‘Damn me, Moll has a lot to answer for,’ Huw muttered. ‘Giving out that she was so kind and caring, yet she could do that to her own daughter.’
‘I can still remember the sigh of relief she uttered when poor little Bobbie died,’ Audrey whispered.
‘Why didn’t you and Wilf marry?’ Beth asked softly.
‘I was told I must never marry him because of what he’d done. Punishment was always Mam’s first thought. And although we planned to run away and defy them, first Dad died, then Wilf’s mother became ill, and slowly the years passed, and we drifted into middle age and the urgency was gone. Poor little Bobbie. When he caught pneumonia everyone was happy. Except Wilf and me.’
Marged stood up, still unable to look at them. Red faced, she stared unseeingly through the doorway to the kitchen, longing to escape but unable to. She knew that if she ran from this now, she would never be able to face any of them again. Yet how could she turn and face the accusation in every eye?
‘You should never have told them, Audrey. How could they understand?’ she said finally, her voice harsh, defensive. ‘Mam did what she did because she thought it was for the best.’
‘Best for her but not for her daughter! Plenty of people marry just in time for the birth,’ Huw said.
‘Not the Pipers.’
‘Damn it all, Marged, it’s not a criminal act, it’s an act of love!’
Maude and Myrtle hugged each other and stared, white faced, at Audrey.
‘Do you have a photograph?’ Olive asked, reaching out and touching Audrey’s arm.
‘Your Granny Moll burnt them all. At least, she thought she had.’ Taking a wallet out of her handbag, Audrey pulled out a faded, dog-eared snap showing her with the baby in her arms. It was passed around without comment. No one knew what to say. There were no words that would offer comfort.
Olive and Ronnie left soon after, with Audrey and the two girls. Beth hugged Olive and said enthusiastically, ‘There’s thrilled I am to be an auntie. Auntie Beth, how does that sound?’ The telling of their glad news had been marred by Audrey’s revelations and Beth knew how disappointing that must have been. She smiled until they were at their door, then her face collapsed from the false smile as thoughts of Auntie Audrey’s tragedy hit her once again.
She stood on the doorstep long after they had disappeared through their front door a few yards up the street. The revelations of the evening had distressed her, partly for the grief her gentle aunt had suffered, and also for the realisation that although she had loved Granny Moll, she had not really known her at all.
She went to bed without any further discussion, leaving her father and mother in a silence that was prickling with words waiting to be said, and for most of the night she was disturbed by arguments and shouting. The argument ended with her father slamming the front door and w
alking with swift, angry strides up the road.
* * *
With the approach of Christmas, women prowled the streets looking for anything that would help make the season a cheerful one. It threatened to be the oddest one in most people’s memory, with shortages making it impossible to plan for the usual overeating and the generous welcomes in every home. The government had announced that the ration would include an extra four ounces of sugar and an extra two ounces of tea.
‘How will that help us make a Christmas cake?’ grumbled Marged. ‘It’s fat we want and some good dried fruit and fresh oranges and lemons for the juice and peel.’
‘Carrots, that’s what Lord Woolton recommends!’ Beth laughed. ‘It’ll be interesting to see what sort of a cake you make with carrots.’
Huw said nothing. He rarely spoke these days and Beth knew that her parents were sleeping in separate bedrooms. She discussed it with Lilly, who had not been present when Audrey told her story, and Lilly said she thought it was their mother keeping the truth from him that had upset him. ‘When you’ve been married as long as they have I don’t think you’d expect any surprises like that one,’ she said, adding with a laugh, ‘I bet Granny Moll would have had something to say to Auntie Audrey for spilling it out like that, just when Olive and Ronnie announced their news of a baby due to be born all respectable, in wedlock!’
‘It isn’t funny. Poor Aunt Audrey.’
‘Poor Olive too, having that reception when she told the family their news.’
‘It was us finding the grave.’
‘You aren’t sorry, are you? At least Auntie Audrey can share her sadness. It is sad. Losing a baby must be the very worst. No replacing it, is there?’ She frowned and added thoughtfully, ‘And when you think of how many parents are having to face that terrible loss every day, it’s hard to imagine how they must feel. Just when their children have grown up and they think they’re safe from childhood illnesses and accidents, this war comes to threaten them.’
Holidays at Home Omnibus Page 55