The Fleethaven Trilogy

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘They’re here,’ came Mrs Godfrey’s voice at last. ‘Rita’s found the midwife.’

  Tears of relief streamed down Peggy’s face. ‘Oh, thank goodness – we’ll be all right now, Kate.’

  Kate did not reply. For the moment, her eyes screwed up with effort and her face growing redder by the second, she was too busy . . .

  Peggy, happy now under the midwife’s guidance, bustled up and downstairs, fetching and carrying whatever was needed. Rita was dispatched to the kitchen to make a cup of tea and Mrs Godfrey sat on her sofa downstairs, her hands folded placidly in her lap, waiting to hear the first cry of the newborn baby from the bedroom above her.

  Outside the bombs continued to whistle down. They heard another one quite close and as it landed the ground shook and the glass in the bedroom window cracked. But the midwife just stood at the side of the bed, her hand resting lightly on Kate’s stomach. She didn’t even flinch.

  Fancy bringing a child into a world like this, Kate thought. I should have been more careful, I should have . . . ‘Aaah . . .’

  ‘You’re doing fine. Not much longer now,’ came the soothing voice.

  Kate’s daughter was born just as the all-clear sounded. It seemed like a good omen.

  ‘Oh, she’s lovely, Mrs Hilton – just perfect,’ said the midwife as she laid the child in Kate’s arms.

  Kate’s eyes roamed over the tiny form, counting fingers and toes and drinking in the look of her child.

  ‘What’s that mark on her left cheek?’

  ‘Oh, just a little birth-pressure mark – it will soon fade,’ the nurse said casually, used to reassuring worried mothers.

  Kate wasn’t so sure.

  On the left side of the baby’s face, just on the line of the jaw, were marks in the shape of two tiny fingers.

  Remembering, Kate could almost feel again the stinging slap Esther had dealt her on the side of her face in exactly the same place as the marks on her baby’s.

  ‘Oh, she’s beautiful,’ Peggy cooed as she bent over the cradle the following day. ‘Isn’t she good? I quite expected her to be bawling loudly.’

  Kate lay back against the pillows. The first euphoria of the birth had deserted her and now she felt rather tired and strangely lonely, even though Peggy and Mrs Godfrey were ecstatic in their delight in the newest member of their household.

  ‘What are you going to call her?’

  Kate hesitated and then she began to laugh, a little hysterically, so that Peggy patted her hand in alarm. ‘Don’t, Kate, don’t,’ she beseeched.

  Tears poured down Kate’s face. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not usually so emotional. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.’

  ‘It’s just all the excitement,’ Peggy soothed.

  Calmer now, Kate watched the baby sleeping placidly in the cradle. If only Peggy knew how she had agonized over the naming of her baby.

  Peggy, misreading Kate’s silence, said, ‘Well, you’ll have to think of one now. You have to register her soon, you know.’

  ‘Yes,’ Kate whispered, still staring at her daughter. She would love to call her daughter Philippa, but how could she? So far she had managed to keep the father’s identity secret, although she felt that Isobel and Mavis had guessed the truth. But she knew her two loyal friends would keep silent, and that was the way she wanted it. She loved Philip enough to want to protect him and spare him any further distress.

  And if she could not call her daughter after him, then there was really only one other name she would consider.

  The interview with the Registrar was a little embarrassing, as he went through the questions.

  ‘ . . . And what is the surname by which the child is to be known?’ the man asked, writing with meticulous care as Kate answered each question.

  ‘Hilton.’

  ‘Name and surname of mother?’

  ‘Katharine Hilton.’

  ‘No, Mrs Hilton, I need your maiden name.’

  When she did not answer immediately, he looked up over his steel-rimmed spectacles.

  She returned his gaze steadfastly and said quietly, ‘Hilton is my only name. I’m not married, Mr Forbes.’

  ‘Ah – I see,’ he said evenly, giving no indication in his tone as to his feelings on such a matter. ‘Then I presume we cannot fill in the father’s name on the certificate. In these circumstances,’ he went on to inform her, ‘it is necessary for the father to be present at the time of registration to give his consent for his name to be on the certificate.’

  Kate nodded. ‘I understand,’ she said huskily. Clearing her throat nervously, she said, more strongly, ‘I’m afraid it’s – not possible.’

  He said no more but filled in the other details, and a few moments later, Kate left the room with her daughter’s birth certificate in her hand.

  Born on the sixteenth day of January, 1943

  Danielle Hilton.

  Forty-One

  Kate could imagine the furore her choice of name would cause at Fleethaven Point. She didn’t care. She wanted to call her baby after Danny and she would not apologize to anyone for having done so. How she wished with all her heart that Danny could see the little girl she had named after him. Mindful, however, of the feelings of others, Kate decided that the little girl would be known as Ella.

  At home in the little terraced house, Mrs Godfrey fussed over the infant. ‘Leave her with me, Kate. She’ll be right as ninepence here in her crib. Go and have a lie down, dear. You look exhausted. You really didn’t ought to be sewing again yet.’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine really. I didn’t sleep too well last night.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t hear her crying.’

  ‘Oh no, she only woke the once to be fed. She’s a good little thing. No – it was just that – well, after I fed her I couldn’t get off again.’

  Mrs Godfrey eyed her sympathetically. Kate knew the older woman understood some of the thoughts going through Kate’s mind. ‘Peg’s written last weekend to tell Jonathan, so – your mother will know.’

  Kate nodded, biting her lip. She forced a smile. ‘I didn’t expect to hear anything.’

  She bent over the baby, asleep in the cradle. The child was a sweet little thing, with tiny features and downy fair hair. The birthmark along her jawline was fading a little and only deepened in colour when the child screwed up her face and cried. It seemed a cruel twist of fate, Kate thought, that the innocent child should bear the mark of Esther’s wrath.

  Mrs Godfrey sniffed disapprovingly and rocked the cradle with her hand as it stood at the side of her sofa. ‘Well, I’d have expected better from our Jonathan.’

  Mavis and Isobel arrived on the doorstep bearing gifts for the baby.

  ‘Sorry we haven’t been before,’ they explained. ‘We wanted to come together and couldn’t seem to organize leave at the same time.’

  ‘They can’t manange without us, you know,’ Mavis joked.

  While Isobel sat and chatted to Mrs Godfrey and nursed Ella, Mavis drew Kate into the front room. She fished a letter out of her bag.

  ‘This arrived for you at camp last week. I – didn’t want to post it on to you. I wanted to make sure you got it.’

  Kate took the letter as Mavis said, ‘It arrived in the mail from a station up north – in Yorkshire.’ When Kate did not answer, Mavis persisted, ‘The CO went up to Yorkshire, didn’t he?’

  ‘So he did, Mave,’ Kate murmured, and composing her face, she looked up again and smiled. ‘I expect it’s just a friendly letter.’

  ‘Oh, most probably,’ Mavis said, with more than a hint of sarcasm. Kate felt her friend’s shrewd gaze upon her face. “Spect he doesn’t know you’ve left, does he?’ she remarked pointedly.

  Slipping the letter into the pocket of her wrap-around apron, Kate said firmly, ‘No, and I don’t want him to know either.’ She saw Mavis open her mouth to say something more, but before she could do so, Kate linked her arm through hers and pulled her back into the living room. ‘Come on, Auntie Mavis, it�
�s time you nursed your god-daughter.’

  Mavis’s eyes widened. ‘God-daughter? You mean – you mean you want me to be her godmother?’ Her face was growing pink with pleasure.

  Kate smiled at her. ‘Yes, you and Iso, if you will. And Peggy too.’

  ‘Oh, I’d love it. I’ve never been a godmother.’ She paused, then asked, ‘Er, aren’t you supposed to have two godmothers and one godfather for a girl?’

  The smile faded from Kate’s face. ‘Yes,’ she nodded, ‘but there’s only one person I would want as her godfather – and – and he’s not here just now.’

  ‘You – you mean – Danny?’

  Kate’s voice was a whisper, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, I see,’ Mavis murmured. It was obvious that her friend did not see at all. In fact she was more perplexed than ever. Kate watched Mavis looking down at the child in Isobel’s arms, her forehead creased and chewing the side of her thumb. Kate could almost read the thoughts running through Mavis’s mind. Kate had been in love with Danny Eland, but he had married someone else. They believed Kate and Philip Trent had been lovers, yet when her child was born, Kate had called her Danielle and now she was admitting that the only man she would want as a godfather was Danny Eland. It was all too much for Mavis to take in.

  It was exactly what Kate wanted, although she felt a little guilty at deliberately trying to turn away suspicion from Philip and back on to Danny.

  Later, in the privacy of her bedroom, Kate read Philip’s letter. It was carefully worded so that to the uninformed eye, it would be a friendly letter from a superior officer to his one-time driver for whom he had an affectionate regard. But to Kate there were hidden references that told her his feelings had not changed.

  ‘ . . . I expect Lincolnshire is looking a little wintry at the moment – no fields of rippling ripe corn . . . My current driver is not nearly so efficient at changing a wheel in the dark . . .’

  He remembered everything that had happened and between the lines, Kate could detect his longing for her. There was a paragraph in which there was more than a hint of anxiety. ‘I have written twice before, but have not had a reply from you. Perhaps you did not get the letters?’ No, she had not received his letters and had begun to think his silence meant the end of their affair. And then came his final words.

  ‘ . . . Kate, we must meet. I shall be attending a big meeting in Grantham the week after next. If you’re still the new CO’s driver, you should be bringing him . . .’

  Kate closed her eyes and groaned. She had dreaded something like this happening. Now he was going to find out she had left the WAAFs and, most probably, why! But if he had to know, then he should hear it from her, and not from any other garbled source.

  ‘ . . . We could meet on the Wednesday about four, at the station, if you could manage it? Philip suggested.

  ‘Heavens!’ Kate murmured, as she turned over his letter and re-read the date. ‘That’s only the day after tomorrow.’

  Her mind worked feverishly. She’d have to find a way to go and meet him. Now she knew he wanted to see her again, she would have to tell him about his baby daughter. ‘Oh dear,’ she agonized. ‘I hope I’m doing the right thing.’

  Luckily for Kate, Wednesday was the day when Peggy, on her half-day off from work, took complete charge of Ella. ‘Much as you love her,’ Peggy had told Kate from the very first week, ‘you need a break. Besides,’ she had smiled down tenderly at the infant, ‘I want her to myself for just a few hours . . .’

  So on Wednesdays, Kate was free to wander into town, to shop, to go to the cinema, or even to go home to Fleethaven Point if she had wanted. Thank goodness Philip had suggested a Wednesday, she thought; she didn’t even need to tell Mrs Godfrey or Peggy where she was going . . .

  The biting February wind whipped along the platform as she waited for him, pulling her coat around her. Then suddenly there he was, striding towards her, and she felt tears prickle her eyes at the sight of his tall, lean figure. He grasped her hands in his, enveloping her cold hands in his huge warm grasp. ‘Kate . . .’ he whispered. ‘Oh my dear, don’t cry.’

  She tried to laugh through the tears she could no longer hide. How could she explain, so quickly, that she was still a little emotional after the birth of her daughter? Their daughter.

  Philip tucked her hand through his arm. ‘Come on – let’s see if we can find the famous British Restaurant,’ he said, trying to make her laugh. ‘How have you been? How are things at the station? I want to hear everything that’s been going on since I left.’

  Kate swallowed nervously, realizing what a shock for him her news was going to be. As they walked, she glanced up at him. His face seemed thinner and there were dark shadows beneath his eyes. He looks desperately tired, she thought. Even his voice sounded weary as if he were having to force himself to speak cheerfully. ‘I’ve only just realized what’s different about you,’ he said as he sat down opposite her in a secluded corner of the restaurant. ‘You’re not in uniform.’

  Kate drew in a deep breath. ‘Oh – er – no. I’ll explain – in a minute . . .’ She bit her lip. Before she told him anything, there was something she must know first. Leaning forward across the table, she said softly, ‘Philip, how are things with you? I mean – with Lizzie?’

  The look of pain that was suddenly in his eyes shocked her in its intensity. ‘Oh, Kate. That’s partly why I asked you to meet me. I wanted to see you, of course. You’ll never know how desperately I’ve missed you all these weeks and months . . .’

  And I you, she thought, but for the moment she remained silent.

  ‘But . . .’ He was strangely, unnervingly hesitant now, and Kate found she was holding her breath. Intuitively, she knew suddenly that she did not really want to hear what Philip was about to say.

  He reached across the table and took her hands in his. ‘My daughter died three weeks ago. She suffered greatly during the final weeks and it has been a dreadful time for the whole family. Grace is distraught and needs me to be with her . . .’

  How cruel it was, Kate thought, that Philip believed he had lost his only child, when in truth, he now had another. But she could not tell him now. Enough time when he had grieved for Lizzie and his wife was strong again. Oh yes, Kate promised him silently. One day you’ll know you have an adorable, perfect daughter. One day, when the time is right and you can rejoice whole-heartedly, I will tell you.

  ‘Poor Grace,’ she heard him saying, dragging her wandering thoughts back to the present, ‘after being so strong all these years while caring for Lizzie, she’s gone to pieces now.’

  Now Kate knew what it felt like to be a mother, she spared a compassionate thought for the unknown woman who was Philip’s wife.

  She squeezed his hands and whispered, ‘Philip – I’m so sorry.’

  ‘You do understand.’ His blue eyes, clouded with misery, searched her face. ‘I can’t bear the thought that I might lose you, but I must stay with Grace for a while.’

  ‘Of course I understand. I told you when you left, I would be waiting. It’s just going to be a little longer, that’s all.’ Her words were brave, but inside her something died. Would he ever come back to her?

  As if reading her thoughts, he said urgently, ‘One day, we’ll be together. I promise you, Kate.’

  He was a man of honour who was compelled, at this moment, to put duty before his own happiness; yet she knew he would not make such a promise lightly. She knew he truly believed he would be able to keep his pledge.

  As they walked back towards the station, he said again, ‘You never did say why you’re not in uniform.’

  Kate’s heart hammered. ‘Oh, I – er – thought it might be less conspicuous for you. Me being’, her voice broke a little, ‘a lowly corporal meeting a Group Captain.’ And when he said, ‘That was thoughtful of you, darling,’ she hated her lie all the more.

  ‘I’ll write to you,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘Oh er, yes, c-could you send the letters to my relatives in Lin
coln? I’ll give you their address.’ She felt her cheeks grow hot as he glanced down at her.

  ‘Of course, if you’d rather.’

  ‘Only your letter took several days to reach me and – and I never did get the other two you mentioned. Besides . . .’ I might as well make it convincing now I’ve started, she told herself. ‘There are too many prying eyes at the camp . . .’

  ‘That’s true. You can write to me, though, at my new station. There’s no problem my end.’

  When they parted two hours later on the platform, he said, ‘We’ll try to meet again . . .’

  For a moment she clung to him and then, tears blinding her, she turned away and stumbled on to the train. As it pulled away, Kate sat huddled in the corner of the carriage, unable to bring herself to wave goodbye to him.

  Forty-Two

  Every day, Kate watched for the postman until even Mrs Godfrey remarked upon it. ‘Are you expecting a letter, dear?’

  ‘No . . . yes . . .’ Kate sighed. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Still hoping to hear from your mam?’ Mrs Godfrey asked gently.

  Kate sighed heavily and forced a wry smile.

  Mrs Godfrey shook her head. ‘I really don’t know what the woman can be thinking of. I’m sorry, Kate. I know she’s your mother, but honestly . . .’

  Kate shrugged her shoulders in sad agreement. She could not tell even the kindly Mrs Godfrey everything that was locked away in her heart. She seemed to have lost everyone; Danny, Philip, and even her family at Fleethaven Point. If asked, she would have been hard-pressed to say which loss hurt the most.

  The following day, they heard footsteps coming down the passage at the side of the house to the back door.

  ‘Now, who can that be, just as we’re sitting down to dinner?’ Mrs Godfrey grumbled, but without real rancour as she, more than anyone else in the house, loved visitors to call and relieve the monotony of her day.

  The latch on the back gate clicked and through the livingroom window which looked out over the back yard, they saw Jonathan and Rosie appear.