The Fleethaven Trilogy

by Margaret Dickinson

  Ella swallowed. She opened her mouth to tell him, to pour out to him the heartache of those years. How her grandmother had never loved her, how she’d only taken her in – her daughter’s bastard – out of a sense of duty, how harshly she’d treated her, how hard she’d worked her, treated her like a skivvy . . .

  She almost gasped at the tumult of emotions coursing through her and, to her surprise, like hearing someone else speaking, found herself saying, ‘It wasn’t always easy. My grandmother is a very strong-minded woman and I . . .’ She smiled. ‘I am told I’m very like her. We had some battles.’

  ‘But she loved you?’ he insisted. It seemed important to him that Ella, his daughter, should have been loved. She could not cause this man, clearly still haunted by the past, yet more pain.

  Carefully she said, ‘I’m sure she did, in her own way, but – but she’s the sort of person who finds it difficult to – to show it. I suppose,’ she added, wrinkling her brow reflectively, considering something she had not really thought about before, ‘I didn’t make it any easier. Even from the start, I always wanted to go back to Lincoln to live with my aunty Peggy.’

  He sighed. ‘We thought it best, you see, that as your loss was so recent, we shouldn’t uproot you, that you should stay with family you knew. But I gave her my address and said that if ever you should ask about me when you were older, then she should give it to you.’

  ‘I’m living with her now,’ Ella murmured. Although she didn’t elaborate on her reasons for leaving Fleethaven Point or tell him that she had just walked out one night, she did explain that now she was attending a one-year course at the Technical College and hoped to find work in the city and go on living there.

  ‘So, you won’t go back to the farm, then?’

  She shook her head and dropped her gaze. ‘No. I won’t ever go back.’

  They talked on and on until the shadows lengthened and dusk crept into the room. He wanted to know everything about her and all that she could tell him about her mother. When a smiling Mrs Trent opened the door to say graciously that dinner was ready and would they like to come through to the dining room, Ella and her father were still talking. As they went through to the dining room, he whispered, ‘I need a little time to break the news to my mother. She doesn’t know anything about you, or even about Kate. Please, could you play along with the student idea, just until I’ve had time? Tomorrow everything will be all right . . .’

  Twenty-Eight

  ‘I don’t know how you’ve got the nerve to show your face again this morning, young woman. You might think you’ve taken my son in with your lies, but you don’t fool me so easily.’

  Ella, standing outside the front door again the following morning, gaped at Mrs Trent. Having seemed to accept the fact that her son knew Ella’s family in some way and made her welcome, Mrs Trent’s obvious hostility was a shock to Ella. The previous evening she had left soon after they had finished dinner, with no further chance to talk to her father alone for his mother had sat with them until she had ushered the girl out into the night, exhorting her to be careful and to go straight back to her hotel; showing, Ella had thought at the time, genuine concern for her.

  In the intervening hours, Philip Trent had obviously tried to explain the situation to his mother, only to be met with a blank refusal to believe any part of his story.

  The tirade continued. ‘I suppose your mother got herself pregnant and made up some cock-and-bull story about her commanding officer being responsible just to make you, and herself, feel good. Do you really imagine that my son, a group captain and a station commander with an exemplary record, would get himself entangled with a silly little WAAF?’ The cold blue eyes narrowed. ‘What are you up to? Blackmail, is it?’

  Ella gasped. ‘That’s not true,’ she said hotly. ‘My father—’

  ‘He is not your father!’ the woman snapped.

  Ella’s chin came higher in defiance. ‘Oh yes he is – and he knows it.’

  ‘Nothing of the sort,’ the woman retorted.

  ‘Hasn’t he told you everything?’

  The woman waved her hand dismissively. ‘Oh, he tried to tell me some romantic nonsense, but it’s not true. None of it is true. Why, at the time, he had a wife and a poor, handicapped daughter who died tragically. He was devoted to them both. Your story is a preposterous pack of lies. And,’ she added and the threat in her tone was obvious, ‘if I see you hanging about here again I’ll call the police.’

  Tears sprang to Ella’s eyes, her disappointment was so acute. Then, blessedly, her spirit, her indomitable spirit, came to her rescue. She held her head high and returned the woman’s stare steadfastly.

  ‘Well, Grandmother, I am telling the truth. Your son believes I am his daughter, and quite frankly I don’t give a damn whether you do or not, just so long as he does!’

  With that, she turned and marched away down the drive.

  Ella found her way to the centre of York where the streets radiated from the Minster, but for once she could take no pleasure in the city, in the shops and squares and old, old buildings. Even the wonderful Minster, though it reminded her of ‘her’ cathedral, failed to bring her solace.

  To have found her father, only to be branded a liar and a trickster by the woman who was, whether she liked it or not, her grandmother, hurt more than she would have believed possible. She took a deep breath and her eyes followed the lines of the towering church above her. Well, she told herself, she’d faced up to a far stronger woman in her time than old Mrs Trent and even at this moment when her heart ached with disappointment she could not help imagining what would happen if her two grandmothers were ever to come face to face. A small smile curved her mouth.

  The very thought of Esther Godfrey gave her fresh heart.

  She retraced her footsteps back to the road where her father lived. She liked the sound of that; she said it over and over in her mind. Her father. Her father!

  There was no green car in the driveway and she did not want to knock at the door again until she was sure he was in the house. Standing behind a tree so that she was obscured from the windows she kept watch. She was still there as the October afternoon turned into evening and dusk crept along the street. Men arrived home from work in cars, or walking, smart-suited men coming home to pretty, house-proud wives and neat, well-behaved children. The street lights came on and a chill wind blew the leaves along the pavement in little, rattling flurries.

  And still Ella waited.

  At last a car came down the road and she shrank away, hiding from its headlights. It turned into the driveway of the house and drew to a halt outside the front door. The car door slammed and a man’s step, quick and eager, bounded across the gravel and to the front door. She reached the gateway and opened her mouth to call his name just as the front door opened and Mrs Trent stood framed in the light streaming out into the darkness.

  ‘Is she here?’ She heard his deep voice plainly through the stillness.

  ‘My dear, she never came back. You really must believe me. That girl was a trickster, a con-artist . . .’

  As he stepped into the house, the door closed and the light was shut off, leaving Ella shivering in the gloom.

  The old beezum! she thought suddenly. That’s what Gran would callMrs Trent; an old beezum.

  She marched up the curving driveway, her feet scrunching on the gravel, and lifted the brass knocker and rat-tat-tatted it determinedly.

  ‘Call me a trickster and a con-artist, would she?’ the girl muttered, but as the door opened and she found herself staring once more into the cold blue eyes of Mrs Trent, her courage almost deserted her.

  ‘Well, you’ve got a nerve, I must say.’ The woman was speaking in a low voice, hissing the words almost, so that her son would not hear.

  Think of Gran, Ella told herself. But not, she thought swiftly and almost giggled at the thought, perhaps exactly what Gran would say; it might be a little too blunt. ‘Get out of my way, you old beezum, and let me pass,’ were
hardly the sort of words that this lady would appreciate.

  ‘Mrs Trent,’ Ella said firmly, but respectfully. ‘I am here to see my father. I should be obliged if you would allow me to do so.’

  The woman gasped. ‘Well, really . . .’ The door seemed about to be slammed shut in her face when Ella heard footsteps on the hall floor and the door was pulled out of the woman’s hand and opened wider.

  ‘Ella, my dear. Come in, come in. You had me worried.’

  ‘I’ve been waiting – in the road – for you to come home,’ she said stepping into the hall.

  ‘You shouldn’t have waited out there in the cold. You should have come in.’

  Ella smiled at the perplexed woman. ‘I didn’t know if you’d been able to explain everything. I didn’t want to cause your mother any distress.’

  His arm was about her shoulders drawing her into the lounge, taking her coat, ushering her towards a chair near the fire.

  ‘We’re just having coffee. I’ll get another cup.’

  As soon as he had left the room, Mrs Trent came close and thrust her face close to Ella’s. ‘It won’t work, young lady. I’ll have the police here if you don’t leave this instant.’

  Ella returned her gaze steadily. ‘Please feel free to call them, Grandmother. I have nothing to hide.’

  By the time her father returned, Mrs Trent was sitting stiffly in a chair on the opposite side of the fireplace, her back rigid, her mouth pursed.

  ‘Ella,’ he began hesitantly as he poured out the coffee. ‘This has been quite a shock for my mother. Hasn’t it, dear?’ He glanced at the older woman.

  ‘Why don’t you tell the girl the truth?’ she said harshly. ‘I don’t believe her pack of lies and I never will. When I think of poor little Lizzie – and Grace . . .’ The woman dabbed a lace handkerchief at her eyes, but Ella thought the action was rather more for effect than genuine emotion.

  Philip Trent’s eyes clouded and Ella, though she said nothing, glanced at him questioningly.

  ‘Lizzie was my daughter.’ A small smile quirked his mouth. ‘My eldest daughter—’

  ‘Your only daughter,’ his mother interrupted.

  Philip sighed but went on, ‘She was born very severely handicapped and we were warned she would never reach adulthood. Grace, my wife, devoted herself to the child. She was wonderful, but, well, because of it, we grew apart.’

  ‘That’s nonsense. It was the war – the wretched war – that took you away.’ She glanced malevolently at Ella. ‘And as for what they used to say about WAAFs – well . . .’

  Ella’s face burned and Philip said warningly, ‘Mother.’

  The woman closed her mouth, clamping it shut, but her eyes flashed indignation.

  ‘After Lizzie died, Grace had a breakdown. After all the years of nursing Lizzie and then her loss. She needed me then. I explained everything to Kate . . .’ He looked into the fire as if seeing pictures from the past. ‘She was marvellous about it. I promised her that one day we would be together, when Grace was strong again, and I meant it. But poor Grace was ill for a very long time – years—’

  ‘And no wonder! The poor dear had much to bear . . .’ Mrs Trent put in.

  Ignoring his mother, he added softly, ‘The last time I saw Kate, in the war, I mean, you must already have been born. How awful it must have been for her not to be able to tell me about you.’

  ‘What happened to your wife?’ Ella asked tentatively.

  ‘After several years of treatment and with the love of her family, she made a full recovery. She took a job, carved herself quite a career in the fashion world. She’s doing very well and is happier, I think, than she’s ever been in her life.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ his mother said frostily. ‘She was a devoted wife and mother. The marriage break-up was your fault, Philip. I see why now. I see it all now. All that talk about mutual agreement to separate, that you’d stay good friends, indeed. And all because of some silly little WAAF who was no better than she should be . . .’

  Philip’s face clouded with anger. ‘Grace and I married too young, Mother, and only because our families, both forces’ families, expected it.’

  ‘Oh, I see, so it’s all our fault, is it? Well, really!’

  ‘No, Mother,’ he said patiently. ‘When Grace was fully recovered we talked and talked as we never had before. We understood each other and have always been, and always will be, very fond of each other.’ He turned towards Ella, trying to explain to them both. ‘But Grace felt there was something lacking in our marriage. She wanted more out of life and I’m thankful she’s found it and is happy.’

  ‘Second best, that’s all her career is for her. All she ever wanted was to be your wife and the mother of your children. I’ve no doubt in my mind that if all this is true – and I don’t say I believe it – but if it is, then I’ve no doubt you broke poor Grace’s heart when you told her all about it and that’s why she went off and got a job and—’

  ‘Mother,’ his voice was clipped, ‘I never told Grace anything about Kate. Our separation had nothing to do with that. It was as much Grace’s wish as it was mine.’

  The woman gasped. ‘I don’t believe you. Why did you never tell Grace?’

  ‘It would have been cruel and unnecessary.’ His voice was husky as he added, ‘If things had turned out differently, as I had hoped they would . . .’ His eyes, full of a deep sadness, were on Ella. ‘Then I would have explained everything to Grace and asked her for a divorce so that I could marry Kate—’

  ‘Then thank goodness things didn’t “work out”, as you put it,’ Mrs Trent said bitterly. ‘A divorce in the family? Never!’

  Ella gasped and felt the colour drain from her face. How could the woman be so heartless as to be thankful for Kate’s death?

  Philip at once put out his hand to cover Ella’s and, before she could say anything, he turned towards his mother and said, ‘That’s unkind, Mother. The only reason I never married Kate was because – because she was drowned in the floods.’

  Ella saw momentary shame in the older woman’s eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I hadn’t realized,’ she said stiffly, ‘but nevertheless, I shall never accept that this girl is my granddaughter. As far as I am concerned, I have only ever had one granddaughter, poor, darling Lizzie . . .’

  At that moment there was a knock at the front door. ‘Oh, now who can that be at this time of night?’ she muttered in exasperation. But she got up and went out of the room.

  ‘Ella, please don’t be upset by what my mother says, she—’

  The door into the room opened. ‘It’s Martin from next door. Come in, Martin. Perhaps you can get my son to come to his senses. Come in, come in and bring Tammy. Philip can just sneeze for once.’

  Into the room came a tall, thin young man with hair flopping over his eyes and huge thick-lensed spectacles that made his eyes large. ‘Sorry, Phil, I didn’t mean to barge in . . .’

  Following behind him on a lead came a Labrador dog, her pink tongue hanging out, her eyes mischievous and looking for fun. At once Philip stood up and moved to the far side of the room. The dog, however, seemed more interested in the one person in the room who was a stranger to her. She pulled away from her master and came to Ella, rubbing against her leg and panting in her face.

  Ella sneezed and began to stand up. ‘Oh, I’m sorry . . .’ She sneezed again, and scrabbled in her pocket for her handkerchief. She was aware that there was a sudden stillness in the room. The other three people were staring at her while the dog continued to snuffle against Ella’s legs giving little barks in greeting.

  ‘Come here, Tammy,’ the man called Martin ordered.

  Ella sneezed twice and said again, ‘I am sorry. I have this allergy, you see . . .’

  There was a gasp and Ella looked up to see Mrs Trent, her hand to her bosom, her eyes wide and her mouth open, sinking down on to the settee as if her legs had given way beneath her.

  Behind her, Philip began to sneeze in unison with Ella until, laughing be
tween the sneezes, he came across the room to her and put his arm about her shoulders. Turning towards Mrs Trent, he said, ‘Now, Mother, not even you . . .’ he paused to sneeze again, ‘can doubt it now.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure I agree with you there,’ Mrs Trent replied, beginning to recover from the surprise but determined to cling to the last vestige of disbelief. ‘Just because the girl has a similar allergy to you doesn’t mean . . .’ Her voice trailed away as her glance went from her son, to Ella and back to the dog.

  ‘This is Martin Hughes.’ Her father now formally introduced the young neighbour who had innocently caused the commotion. Philip smiled down at the dog but made no attempt to touch her. ‘And his dog, Tammy. And this . . .’ he drew Ella forward, ‘is my daughter, Ella.’

  The young man’s eyes widened. ‘I – didn’t know you had a daughter – at least . . .’

  ‘Only Lizzie, you mean?’ Philip said softly. ‘To be truthful, neither did I until about six years ago.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, I see,’ Martin said, sitting down and making himself comfortable as if he were prepared to stay there the night, or at least until he had heard the whole story. The dog padded over to the bay window and stretched herself out on the rug, as if she knew she should keep away from Philip.

  Mrs Trent rose. ‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I need a drink. Whisky, Martin?’

  ‘Please.’

  As the older woman left the room, Ella said, ‘I am sorry all this has upset your mother.’

  Philip shook his head. ‘It’s not your fault. I suppose I rather sprang it on her last night and after you’d tried to be so tactful too, inventing the story about being a student.’ He tapped her playfully on the nose with his forefinger.

  They smiled at each other as he went on. ‘But I was so delighted you’d come at last. I wanted her to share the wonderful news and then, well . . .’ he spread his hands, ‘she just wouldn’t believe me, refused point blank to accept any part of it.’ He laughed, a little shamefacedly. ‘Wouldn’t even believe that I had been “a naughty boy” in the war.’