Twenty-Six
‘Ella! Whatever are you doing here?’
Peggy’s eyes were wide with delighted surprise, but in the next moment filled with concern. ‘Why, my dear girl, whatever’s wrong? Come in, come in.’
The resolve, the bitter, desperate loneliness that had driven her from Brumbys’ Farm, had carried her along the road to town and on to the early morning bus and had sustained her throughout the two-hour journey, finally broke. Ella dissolved into racking sobs, the tears pouring down her face as she put up her arms. ‘Oh, Aunty Peg, Aunty Peg.’
The older woman drew her into the house, pushed her gently into a chair in her living room and went through to the small kitchen and plugged in the kettle.
‘Now, dear,’ she said coming back and sitting down in front of Ella. ‘Dry those tears and tell me what this is all about.’ There was deep anxiety in her own eyes but she knew she would get no sense out of the girl until she had calmed down.
‘I’m sorry,’ Ella sniffled, pitifully. ‘This isn’t like me, is it?’
Peggy shook her head. ‘No, it isn’t.’
It seemed as if the floodgates of six and a half years’ unhappiness were opened at last. She cried for her mother; the loving, gentle mother she had lost. She wept at having been obliged to live in an alien place of wide open spaces and glowering skies and she railed against the woman who had grudgingly taken her in out of a sense of duty. And she cried for Rob.
She told Peggy everything, not sparing herself, right up to the moment when she knew she could take no more.
‘I know I’ve always been difficult, wilful, but – but it’s always been as if no one loves me any more . . .’
‘Oh, Ella, how can you say that? You know how much I love you.’
‘But you weren’t there, Aunty Peggy,’ she wailed. ‘She wouldn’t even let me come to see you. Not for six years.’
Peggy sighed. ‘But Jonathan loves you.’
Fresh tears welled and flooded down the swollen, blotchy cheeks. ‘I know. But – he – he’s not my real grandfather, is he?’ she whispered.
‘Oh.’ Peggy blinked. ‘So you’ve been finding out all about the past, have you?’ And when Ella nodded, Peggy murmured, ‘Your grannie wouldn’t like that.’
‘She didn’t,’ the girl said bitterly. ‘But Uncle Danny told me, after she was so mad at me and Rob. He took me to Suddaby and then back to Fleethaven. Even Grandpa agreed I ought to be told, but . . .’ her face clouded, the feeling of guilt washing over her ‘. . . he’s not very well now. He doesn’t seem to have the strength to cope with the rows between me and Gran. I just thought, well, if I left, things might be easier for him too. I mean, she’ll look after him. At least, I think she will. He’s her whole life – him and the farm.’ And the unspoken words hung in the air; that she believed she had no part in her grandmother’s life. All she had ever been was a hindrance, an intruder in the couple’s life.
Peggy bent forward a little and searched her face, asking perceptively, ‘You’re not sure, though, are you? I think you’re worried about him.’
Ella nodded. ‘I – I just wonder if he’ll cope with all the work when I’m not there to help. Gran’s so strong, she doesn’t tolerate weakness in anyone.’
‘Not even her beloved Jonathan?’ Peggy asked in surprise.
Ella shrugged. ‘Oh, I think if anything happened to him, she’d be frantic. It’s just . . .’ She hesitated, struggling to put into words something that was merely a feeling. ‘He never grumbles, you see, never complains that he’s tired.’
‘And she never notices?’
‘Well, sometimes. You know, it was always, “Ella do this, your grandpa’s tired,” or, “Ella, your grandpa needs help.” But if I’m not there . . .’
She left the words hanging in the air, but her unhappy face showed she could not entirely bury her worry for the kind and gentle man she still thought of as her grandfather, never mind the absence of blood ties.
‘Do they know you’ve come here?’
Ella shook her head. ‘I – just walked out in the night. Like they say she did when she was sixteen. That’s how she came to Brumbys’ Farm.’
‘And you’ve run away from it,’ Peggy murmured and sighed, then added, ‘We must let them know you’re here, that you’re safe.’
‘She won’t care!’
‘Yes, she will,’ Peggy said firmly, ‘and Jonathan certainly will. You don’t want to cause him more worry, now do you?’
Ella pursed her lips against the tears and shook her head.
‘Right, then. You drink your tea and I’ll just nip up to the phone box at the top of the next street and ring the Elands. Danny will go and tell them. What’s his number?’
When Ella had written it on a scrap of paper, Peggy hurried off to telephone leaving Ella sitting hunched near the fire, her hands cupped around the mug of tea.
It seemed ages before Peggy came back. Sitting down in front of her again, before she even took off her coat, Peggy said, ‘I spoke to Danny. He thinks it’s perhaps for the best that you’ve come here for a while. He says there’s been nothing but rows for weeks now. But . . .’ She paused and stressed her next words. ‘He said, “Tell her not to stay away for ever. We all love her.”’
Tears filled Ella’s eyes but did not fall. She pressed her lips together and shook her head. ‘Maybe they do, but not Gran. Gran’s never loved me – and – and I don’t think she ever will.’ She raised her tearstained face. ‘I’m never going back, Aunty Peg. Never!’
Peggy sighed, but all she said was, ‘Never’s a long time, love.’
‘Aunty Peg, do you know who my real father is?’
‘D’you know, I’ve been waiting for that question ever since you got here.’ Peggy smiled.
Ella had been living with Peggy for two weeks.
That first night she had lain awake in the tiny bedroom, listening to the drone of the traffic on the main road passing the top of the street, drifting into sleep and then disturbed by the sudden bang of a door in the adjoining terraced house, the sound of raised voices from the neighbours. She had scrambled out of bed once to peer out of the window to see a drunk weaving his way down the middle of the road, his tuneless singing echoing down the wet street.
She snuggled back into bed but sleep would not come now; the room seemed stifling, the walls so close, the confined space so airless. She got out of bed again and tugged and heaved at the sash window until she could feel a draught of air coming into the room, suddenly with an irrational longing for wide open spaces and freedom. It was so totally unlike the large bedroom at home . . .
Home? Why ever was she calling Brumbys’ Farm ‘home’? she demanded of herself irritably. This was home. Lincoln was home. It always had been, she reminded herself sharply. Never mind what Peggy said, she was not going back to Fleethaven Point. Not ever!
But as sleep had claimed her at last in the early hours of a chill city morning, she imagined she felt the weight of Tibby on her feet and heard the creaking of the timbers in the roof above her head.
She had enrolled for a secretarial course at the Lincoln Technical College and although the term had already started, there was a place because two people had dropped out after the first week. She was interviewed and accepted immediately and hurried along the road each morning to learn shorthand, typing, and book-keeping.
‘The teacher makes us type in the dark,’ she giggled to Peggy, ‘so that we learn to touch-type properly and don’t look at the keyboard.’
‘How do you know what you’re typing?’
‘There’s a projector and screen and she shows a film of the keyboard and someone’s fingers typing and we just watch that and try to do the same.’
‘Sounds difficult.’
‘Actually, it’s fun!’ Ella said. ‘We type to music too, to learn to keep an even rhythm.’
‘I’m glad you’re enjoying it, dear.’
‘Oh I am, but . . .’ It was then that Ella’s face clouded a
nd she asked about her father.
Peggy clasped her hands together, her eyes shining. ‘It’s been on my conscience for years.’
‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘Let’s make a cup of tea,’ it seemed as if Peggy always turned to the teapot in times of crisis or with a problem to face, ‘and I’ll tell you everything.’
‘You get the biscuits out and I’ll make the tea.’ Ella smiled, switched on the kettle and reached for the tea caddy, though her fingers were trembling. Did Peggy know something that would help her find her father?
‘I don’t know how much you know or remember,’ Peggy began.
Ella shook her head, frowning. ‘I don’t know anything, except,’ her mouth tightened, ‘that my mother was never married and that’s what caused my gran to be so bitter.’ She returned Peggy’s gaze steadily. ‘I only found out recently exactly why. You see, Gran was a bastard – like me.’
Peggy flinched. ‘Then you’d think she’d be a bit more understanding.’
Ella nodded. ‘That’s what Grandpa’s often said. Even when I was young and didn’t understand what they were on about, I overheard him say it.’
Peggy took a deep breath. ‘Do you remember at your mother’s funeral, you saw a man standing under the trees, in the shadows?’
Ella twisted her mouth, struggling to recall that dreadful day. ‘I – think so.’
‘When we all moved away, he – he went to stand by the grave. None of us took much notice of him at the time. It was only natural, we were all so dreadfully upset. But when we got back to Rookery Farm you asked us, in the kitchen, who he was.’ Peggy smiled gently at the memory. ‘Gave us quite a shock and threw poor Mavis into a right old dither.’
‘Why?’
‘They, Mavis and Isobel, guessed it could have been him – your father. And then . . .’ Peggy paused, warming to her story, seeming suddenly to be enjoying the drama of the moment. ‘He came to see me.’
Ella gasped, ‘When? After the funeral? Oh, why didn’t you tell me?’
‘No, no, it wasn’t after the funeral. It was at the time your photograph appeared in a daily paper.’
Ella looked puzzled.
‘You remember when you found that bomb on the beach?’
Ella’s expression cleared. ‘Oh, yes.’
‘Well, he saw it. It was all in there – your name, your age, even about your mother having driven the Commanding Officer at Suddaby in the war. He came here to ask about you.’
‘Didn’t he know about me then?’
‘He told me that just after New Year in 1953,’ Peggy went on, trying to bring all the strands of the events together, ‘he’d written to your mum asking her to meet him again. Evidently, until then, his life had been very difficult and he hadn’t been able to contact her. He sent the letter to Fleethaven Point because he knew that was her home.’
Ella nodded excitedly. ‘That must have been the letter she received when we got there, to go to the old man’s funeral. And,’ she paused for effect, ‘there was a letter found in her handbag, but it was drenched and the writing absolutely unreadable. So was that why Mum went out in Uncle Danny’s car that Saturday?’
Peggy nodded. ‘Yes, it was. Your mum went up the coast to meet him. They talked, but she didn’t tell him about you. I don’t know why. Maybe – if you find him – he can tell you what happened between them.’
Ella whispered, ‘So why didn’t he come to find me when you told him about me? Why . . .’ there was bitterness in her tone now, ‘why did he leave me with her?’
Peggy looked uncomfortable for a moment. ‘Maybe that’s my – well, our – fault. I came to talk it over with your grandfather and he said he thought it would be for the best if you stayed there. You’d only recently lost the most important person in your world. He thought it best that you stayed with people who loved you rather than go to complete strangers.’
Vaguely, she remembered Peggy coming to Brumbys’ Farm and talking in secretive whispers to her grandfather. It had not been about Ella going back to Lincoln, as she had hoped at the time, but something even more important.
Ella leaned forward, ‘But that was my father, for heaven’s sake!’
Peggy wriggled. ‘Well, I’m sorry, if you think we were wrong. I wanted to tell you when you got older, but whenever I mentioned it to Jonathan – and I did, Ella, believe me, I did – he kept saying, “Wait till she asks. Time enough when she asks.” But I can’t allow you to blame Jonathan entirely because I agreed with his decision, at least when you were young. I was very tempted to tell you everything when you were here just before Christmas, but then with Janice here . . .’ Peggy’s voice faltered. Her face creased with guilt, she whispered, ‘I’m sorry if you’re angry.’
Swiftly Ella smiled, reached out and patted the older woman’s hands. Peggy Godfrey had always been so important in her life; whatever she had done, or not done, Ella knew, would have been with the best of intentions. ‘Of course I’m not angry with you – or Grandpa, for that matter.’ Ella’s lips tightened as she added, ‘Did she know?’
‘I presume Jonathan told your grannie, but I don’t know for sure.’
‘Huh! If she did know, I’m surprised she didn’t pack me off to him on the first train.’
Peggy sighed. ‘You’re incredibly hard on her, you know. I’ve always been a bit in awe of her, but she’s not as bad as you make out, surely?’
Ella snorted wryly. ‘Don’t you believe it!’
They were silent for a few moments, both busy with their own thoughts.
‘So, have you got a name – an address – anything?’ Ella persisted.
Peggy nodded and rose to go into the front parlour. ‘Wait a minute.’
She came back with a folded paper in her hand. ‘He left this and said that if the right time ever came . . .’
Ella unfolded the paper with shaking fingers. The words danced and blurred before her eyes. There was a name, an address in York and even a phone number. She looked up again at Peggy. ‘But who is he?’
‘The man she drove for in the war, the Station Commander at Suddaby.’ Peggy nodded towards the piece of paper trembling in Ella’s fingers. ‘He’s your father. Group Captain Philip Trent.’
Twenty-Seven
‘I’ve got some photos!’
Ella bounced up, dragged open the door and rushed up the narrow stairs, returning moments later with a handful of letters and photographs she had found in her mother’s box.
‘There,’ she demanded, holding one out towards Peggy. ‘Is that him? The tall man standing beside Mum near the car?’
Peggy bent over the picture and then nodded. ‘Yes, dear. That’s him.’ She raised her eyes and said, ‘That’s your father.’
Almost reverently, Ella took the photograph back into her own hands and stared down at it, drinking in the sight of the man, trying to imagine what his voice sounded like, wanting, desperately, to know all about him.
‘I tell you who you ought to go and talk to. Mavis.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Ella murmured, her concentration still on the face in the photograph. ‘Uncle Danny said Mavis, or Isobel, might be able to help.’
‘She and Isobel were with your mum all the time at Suddaby. I think Isobel’s abroad at the moment. But of the two, I would say Mavis was your best bet anyway.’ Peggy smiled. ‘If anyone knows about him, Mavis will!’
‘Oh, Ella, he was a lovely man!’ Mavis clapped her fat hands together and beamed delightedly when she had listened to all that Ella had to tell her, about everything that had happened to bring her to this point. ‘Are you going to get in touch with him, to see him?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Ella answered promptly.
‘I’m sure he’ll be thrilled. Such a kind man, he was. Only . . .’ Her face clouded.
‘What, Aunty Mave?’
‘At the time – in the war, I mean – he was married.’
Ella nodded. ‘Well, I’d guessed as much. There had to be more than just the fact that he was
a high-ranking officer and she a lowly corporal to stop them getting married. Unless, of course,’ she added bitterly, ‘it was just a fling and she meant nothing to him.’
Mavis shook her head vehemently until her chin wobbled. ‘No, no, he wasn’t like that. I mean, he wasn’t that sort of man. Very honest, very honourable.’
‘It wasn’t very honourable to have an affair with a WAAF if he was already married, was it?’
Mavis’s eyes were troubled. ‘We could never get anything out of your mum. She was incredibly loyal to him. She never actually told us who it was, we just guessed.’
Ella stared at her. ‘Then you mean, you don’t really know that it was Philip Trent? Not for sure?’
Mavis wriggled her shoulders in embarrassment. ‘For a time – we – we thought it was someone else . . .’
‘Who?’
‘I’d rather not say.’
‘Aunty Mave . . .’ Ella began warningly.
‘Oh, very well,’ Mavis said, capitulating at once. ‘We thought it was Danny Eland. She was always talking about him, always writing to him, and when he married someone else – I forget her name – well, your mum nearly went berserk.’
‘Rosie,’ Ella said, almost absently. ‘He married Rosie. So you don’t know then,’ she said slowly, ‘just why Danny and my mum didn’t marry?’
Mavis shook her head.
Quietly, Ella said, ‘They were half-brother and -sister.’
Mavis’s face was a picture. ‘Brother and sister!’ Her huge frame collapsed into a chair, conveniently close.
‘Half-brother and -sister,’ Ella corrected her and then went on to give her the full story.
‘Why didn’t she ever tell us?’
Ella shrugged. ‘Perhaps she thought you wouldn’t understand. That it would all sound a bit, well, not quite nice.’
Mavis stared at her. ‘Mmm, you could be right. Can’t say I blame her, now I think about it. Old Iso could be a bit tart with some of her judgements about people,’ Mavis pulled a wry face, ‘though by that time we were all pretty good friends.’ She was quiet for a moment, perhaps recalling the time the three of them – Kate, Isobel Cartwright and herself – had all been together during the war.
The Fleethaven Trilogy Page 107