‘I’ve already told you that I will not sell my baby,’ Adina said shortly, but the old woman’s expression never wavered.
‘It would make sense,’ she pointed out calmly. ‘And I’m not talking pennies either. I’m talking about enough money to set you up for life. Think about it – you could go home and start anew with money in the bank. And you’re still so young, you could have a dozen more babies if you wanted to, whereas Fliss’s time is running out.’
‘Please leave me!’ Adina waved a trembling finger towards the door. ‘I can’t believe that you could be so callous. There isn’t enough money in the whole world to buy this little girl.’
The old woman got unsteadily to her feet. ‘You’re all hormonal at the minute because you’ve just given birth, but we’ll talk about it again in a few days, eh? You’ll be thinking more sensibly then. That child could lead a charmed life if you agreed to Theo and Fliss adopting her. She would want for nothing, least of all love, whereas with you she’ll know nothing but poverty – and she’ll be branded a bastard.’
Tears were streaming down Adina’s cheeks now but the old woman ignored her as she shambled from the room, leaving the door to swing wide open behind her.
‘Don’t worry, darling,’ she whispered to the baby. ‘Nothing and no one will ever take you away from me.’
The strain of the birth and all the excitement had taken its toll on her now, so she gently leaned over and tucked the baby into the crib that Theo had thoughtfully placed at the side of the bed and in no time at all she had fallen into a deep exhausted sleep.
It was some hours later when she woke to the sound of someone softly crooning. She knuckled the sleep from her eyes and when she turned her head she saw Fliss tenderly nursing the baby in the chair at the side of her.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, as she saw the glass feeding-bottle in Fliss’s hand.
Fliss started guiltily as she dragged her eyes away from the infant’s sleeping face. ‘Oh, sorry if I woke you,’ she apologised. ‘You looked so worn out that I didn’t like to disturb you, and the baby was hungry so I made up a bottle.’
‘But I intend to breastfeed her,’ Adina protested weakly.
‘You still can,’ Fliss assured her. ‘I checked with the nurse and she said that many babies need topping up with a bottle. And I’m sure you’ll be wanting to get back to work soon, so it’s best that she gets used to the bottle now, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose so,’ Adina said uncertainly. The baby looked contented enough, she had to admit.
‘Right then, I’ll just change her and then I’ll leave you in peace.’ Fliss laid the baby carefully on the end of the bed before expertly folding a nappy.
‘You look as if you know what you’re doing,’ Adina commented quietly.
Fliss chuckled. ‘I’ve been practising for weeks,’ she admitted. ‘I thought if I could help out with her a little it would take some of the strain off you.’ Within minutes she had changed and powdered the tiny bottom, then after planting a gentle kiss on the baby’s soft cheek she reluctantly handed her back to her mother as she asked, ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to sleep in the chair in here with you tonight? I could see to Dottie if she woke then, and you could get some rest.’
‘I shall be perfectly fine, thank you,’ Adina retorted, more sharply than she had intended to.
‘Very well.’ Fliss lifted the empty bottle and headed for the door. ‘Goodnight then.’
‘Goodnight.’ Long after she had gone Adina sat staring at her daughter’s perfect face as her mind worked overtime. Each time the baby opened her eyes Adina felt as if Karl was staring at her. The baby looked remarkably like him, the curve of her chin, the colour of her hair and eyes, even the dimples in her cheeks which were tiny replicas of his. Up until the baby’s birth she had been able to think of no one but him. But everything had changed now. She had a daughter and suddenly Dorothy was the most important person in the world to her and she knew that she would have laid down her life for her if need be. Oh, how she wished that she had her own place where it could be just her and the baby. It unnerved her, seeing Fliss and Theo fuss over her, knowing how much they longed for a child of their own. And then there was Mrs Montgomery, who had made it more than plain that she was willing to set Adina up for life financially if she would only give the baby to her son and his wife, but Adina knew that she could never do that. There was not enough money in the whole world to make her part with her baby now that she had seen her and held her in her arms.
Sighing, she stared up at the ceiling. Fliss had been quite right about one thing at least. Soon she would have to go back to work to support herself and the child. She couldn’t expect the Montgomerys to keep her for nothing indefinitely. They had done more than enough for her already and she would never forget that. It was just that now the thought of leaving the baby in someone else’s care was terrifying.
She lay there for a long time fretting but at last her eyes fluttered shut again and she slept.
Much to the midwife’s disgust, Adina was up and about again in three days.
‘It’s far too soon,’ Nurse Simmons scolded. ‘You should have stayed in bed for at least another couple of days.’
‘I’m fine. And I need to get up so that I can go and register the baby’s birth.’
‘Oh, don’t get worrying about that. I can go and do that for you,’ Theo volunteered. It seemed that nothing was too much trouble for this kindly couple, to the point that Adina was beginning to feel vaguely uneasy about it.
But she merely smiled as she winded the baby over her shoulder. She had taken to being a mother like a duck to water and couldn’t even begin to imagine what her life would be like without little Dottie now. She was such a good baby too, only crying when she wanted feeding or changing. Adina loved being a mother although she had been forced to be rather assertive with Fliss, who would have taken over the role completely if Adina had allowed it. Adina only had to move away from the crib and Fliss would be there, picking the baby up, insisting that she had wind or that she needed feeding. Mrs Montgomery watched all this without a word, although her expression clearly said what she thought.
The baby should have been Fliss’s, as far as she was concerned, and she thought Adina was a fool to try and bring the child up on her own.
Theo fussed over the baby too when he was at home but he had gone back to work at the school now. Fliss had said she was going to have a little more time off to help with the baby, although Adina had told her that it really wasn’t necessary, she could manage perfectly well. But Fliss wouldn’t hear of it and so Adina had to bite her tongue and make the best of what was fast becoming a difficult situation.
Dottie was almost two weeks old when Adina came down the stairs with her in her arms one morning to find Beattie going through the post.
‘Ah, there’s one for you, luvvie,’ she smiled, handing an envelope to Adina and cooing at the baby. Dottie already had everyone in the house eating out of her hand, except for Mrs Montgomery, that was. ‘The old woman has already been and taken hers,’ Beattie confided. ‘It’s amazing how she can get about when she wants to, ain’t it?’
‘Thank you.’ Adina glanced at the envelope and saw that it was from Ariel.
‘It’s from your aunty,’ she whispered into the child’s soft downy hair. ‘We’ll have a read of it after you’ve had your breakfast, shall we?’
As the child stared up at her from trusting blue eyes, Adina’s heart melted all over again. Dottie had lost the red-faced newborn look now and her mother thought she was even more beautiful, if that was possible.
Once the child was fed and changed, Adina settled her back into her crib where the baby instantly fell asleep. Tenderly tucking the blankets over her, Adina sat down to read Ariel’s letter. She had hoped to catch Theo before he left for the school as it had occurred to her during the night that he hadn’t given her Dottie’s birth certificate yet, after kindly going to register the birth for he
r. Now she forgot all about it as she eagerly read Ariel’s letter, but her contented mood changed as she read further down the page.
Ariel informed her that she was becoming seriously concerned about Ezra. He had lost a lot of weight and didn’t seem to be his normal self at all. He had even allowed Ariel to go to the house and do a little cleaning for him, which she knew went totally against his independent nature.
She asked how much longer it would be before Adina could come home for a visit, as she felt that seeing her would cheer him up a little. Adina chewed her lip in consternation. Ariel had no idea about the baby, nor did her father, so how could she ever go home now? But then how could she ignore Ariel’s request? If her father was really ill, she knew that she should go to him.
Crossing to the window, she stared thoughtfully down into the street below. She had believed that with the birth of the baby, all her troubles would be over – but in fact they were only just beginning. She had hoped that she would be married to Karl by now, but that hadn’t happened. And now she was trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea. If she chose to ignore the letter she could make a life for herself and the baby and turn her back on her family for good. But would she be able to do that and live with herself? On the other hand, should she arrive back home with a new baby in tow, her father would turn his back on her. It was a dilemma that for now she had no idea how to resolve.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Everyone commented on how quiet Adina was at dinner that evening but she offered no explanation, simply excused herself and left the table early. She hurried upstairs to where Dottie was sleeping peacefully in her crib, looking like a little blonde-haired angel, but she had barely entered the room when there was a tap on the door and Fliss stuck her head round it.
‘Can I come in?’ she asked.
Adina sank into a chair as Fliss came to sit on the edge of the bed.
‘So what’s wrong then?’ she asked bluntly. ‘You haven’t been yourself all day. Are you not feeling well?’
‘I’m fine,’ Adina assured her, and then suddenly to Fliss’s dismay she burst into tears.
The older woman placed a comforting arm about her shoulders and remained silent until Adina’s sobs subsided, then smoothing the hair from her forehead she said kindly, ‘Why don’t you tell me all about it, eh? They do say a problem shared is a problem halved.’
Adina blew her nose noisily on the handkerchief that Fliss had placed in her hand before blurting out, ‘It’s just everything!’
‘So start at the beginning and we’ll work through it.’
Adina gulped deeply before saying, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I thought Karl would be back and we would be married before Dottie was born, but that didn’t happen. I would have staked my life that he loved me, so something must have happened to him or he would have been here. I don’t know how I would have coped without you and Theo, but I can’t put on you for ever. I already owe you both more than I can ever repay.’ Only that afternoon, Theo had come home proudly pushing one of the latest coach-built prams from the Silver Cross factory. Adina herself had seen one in a secondhand shop that she had been intending to buy with her meagre savings, but once again Theo had beaten her to it, just as he had with everything else the baby had needed.
‘And now,’ she went on tremulously, ‘my sister informs me in her letter that she is worried about our father. He hasn’t been the same since our mother died but now she thinks that he may be genuinely ill and she wants me to go and see him.’
‘So go and see him then,’ Fliss said in a matter-of-fact voice.
‘How can I?’ Adina wailed. ‘How can I just turn up with a baby? Our father is a wonderful man but he’s very strict and he would never forgive me for having a baby out of wedlock – especially as the baby’s father was a German. He turned his back on my sister for a long time because she married an Englishman, so what would he have to say about Karl? In his eyes, I would have committed the gravest sin imaginable.’
Fliss sat lost in thought for a few moments before suggesting, ‘Why don’t I look after Dottie for you whilst you visit him? You know she would be perfectly safe with me and she’s used to the bottle now so she would be fine.’
Adina shuddered at the very idea, although she knew that what Fliss said was perfectly true. She would look after Dottie as if she was her own – but how could she bear to leave her baby, even for a few days?
‘I don’t think that is an option,’ she said now. ‘Dottie is my baby and it should be me who looks after her.’
‘But you’ll have to leave her with someone when you go back to work,’ Fliss sensibly pointed out. ‘And it’s not as if you’re leaving her for ever, is it? What harm could a few days do? And you’ll feel so much better once you’ve seen your father. You said yourself that you felt terribly guilty about not going home to him during the Christmas holidays. Of course you had a reason not to then, but there’s nothing to stop you now. He can have no idea that you’ve had a baby.’
‘That’s part of the problem.’ Adina sighed glumly. ‘Here I am, the mother of a beautiful baby girl, and none of my family even know about her. I can’t keep her a secret for ever, can I? It looks as if I’m ashamed of her, and yet she is a blessing.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there.’ Fliss glanced at Dottie. ‘What you decide to tell your family is entirely up to you, although I would strongly suggest that you leave things as they are. What they don’t know cannot hurt them – but why don’t you get an early night and sleep on it? And remember, if you do decide to go home for a visit, the offer to care for Dottie still stands.’
Long after Fliss had left the room Adina struggled with herself. Half of her wanted to just turn up at the shop in Edmund Street with her baby and bring it all out into the open. The other half trembled at the possible repercussions. It just seemed so sad to think that her father had another baby granddaughter that he did not even know about.
All night she tossed and turned, but by the time that dawn broke, she had made her decision. She would take Fliss up on her offer to care for Dottie and would go and see her father. If she did not, and something were to happen to him, she knew that she would never be able to forgive herself. But it would only be for a couple of days. She could not bear to be parted from Dottie for longer than that, so soon after her birth.
She told Fliss of her decision over breakfast the next morning, and Fliss nodded in approval, secretly thrilled at the thought of having Dottie all to herself for a while.
‘I’ll get Theo to call in and check the times of the trains from Euston this morning and you could perhaps go tomorrow?’ she suggested, and so it was decided.
The next morning Adina packed a small case that Fliss had loaned her and kissed Dottie goodbye with tears in her eyes. She felt as if she was leaving her for ever rather than for just a short time.
Theo had promised to walk with her to the station and now there could be no more delaying the parting as Fliss ushered her towards the front door, the baby tucked comfortably in the crook of her arm.
‘Now off you go and stop fretting,’ she said sternly as Adina hovered on the top step. ‘Dottie will be perfectly all right and we’ll see you soon. Stay as long as you like.’
Adina managed a weak smile as she tripped down to the front gate, but all the way to the station she felt as if her heart was breaking, and she wondered how other young women in her position were ever able to give their babies up for adoption. She couldn’t imagine her life without Dottie now.
At Euston she attracted more than a few admiring glances as she stood on the platform waiting for the train. Her belly was still quite wobbly, but she had borrowed a corset from Fliss and managed to squeeze back into an outfit she had worn before the pregnancy. Thankfully, no one but herself would know that, and Nurse Simmons had assured her that it would tighten up again in time. Her breasts were fuller too and she knew that she was going to have to express her milk regularly or she would be in pa
in. But today she had taken especial care over her appearance. She was wearing a straight blue skirt and a crisp green blouse topped by a rather becoming red coat and a small hat with a tiny veil attached to it that Fliss had insisted she should borrow.
‘They look so much better on you than they do on me,’ she had told her. ‘And I want you going home looking smart. It wouldn’t do for your father to think we had been neglecting you.’
When the train eventually chugged into the station Adina gracefully climbed aboard. She found an empty seat in a compartment and after putting her small case in the overhead luggage rack she settled into her seat and folded her gloved hands neatly into her lap. There was a middle-aged gentleman in a smart suit and a thick black overcoat sitting opposite her, and when Adina saw him watching her slyly she hastily averted her eyes and stared from the window. During the journey to Nuneaton he made a few attempts at conversation but when Adina merely answered him politely and returned her attention to the passing scenery he eventually gave up and did the crossword in his newspaper instead.
Later that morning, Adina stepped down from the train onto the platform at Trent Valley railway. station and took a deep breath. She had forgotten how clean the air was here after becoming used to the smog in London. Then, clutching the smart case that Fliss had also loaned her, she set off in the direction of the shop. It felt strange to be back in Nuneaton again, but then she supposed that was to be expected. So much had happened to her since she had last been there. She had left as a naïve young girl but she was returning as a young woman and a mother – not that her family could know that.
It was market day, and as she passed the stalls a thousand familiar smells and sounds assailed her, the tempting aroma of faggots and peas and steak and onion pie issuing from the pie stall, the smell of the cows enclosed in the pens as farmers heatedly bartered over the price of them. The loud squawking of the chickens as they scratched at the floor of their cages, indignant at their treatment. It was all just as she remembered it and yet it was strangely different now. She took a short cut through Riversley Park and her eyes smarted as she remembered the many stolen moments she and Karl had shared there. Then at last she was nearing the end of Edmund Street and as she turned the corner, the shop came into sight. Outside, a selection of fruit and vegetables were displayed in crates as usual, and even as she stood there the door opened and a customer exited carrying a large brown paper carrier bag with string handles.
A Band of Steel Page 28