She smiled widely and said. “Danny is very much a gentleman, so far at least. And so far, I’ve been the perfect lady!” She winked, and left the room, wickedly leaving Harriet in a state of some anxiety.
On one occasion she met Danny at the railway station and they went out of town. Each wanted to keep the friendship secret. Danny was not sure if he really wanted to settle for one woman when until now he had enjoyed several. Charlotte’s obvious determination not to succumb to his sexual advances was irksome.
Lovemaking with her would be exciting, he knew that from the way she had responded on a number of occasions, but she was strong enough to hold back. He usually managed to persuade a girl after one or two dates and buying a few gifts. It was becoming quite a problem. Celibacy was not for him.
He pondered this walking home after an evening at the pictures and supper at a café, having seen Charlotte home without anything more than a very chaste kiss. On his way along the path leading to Bertha’s house where he was again lodging, he saw someone on the river bank. He slowed his steps and called good night without recognising the figure who sat so still.
“Hello Danny. Too hot to sleep,” a slow voice replied and he went and sat down beside her. Her feet were bare and she wore a thin dressing gown.
“Lillian, what are you doing out here all alone?”
“Too hot to sleep,” she repeated. “You been kissing that Charlotte again?”
“Hush love, it’s our secret, for a while, remember?”
“Like when we sneaked into Joe’s shop?”
“That’s right. Come on, now. Let’s get you back into the house.”
“Don’t want to.”
“But it’s late.”
“Too hot to sleep.”
“You’ll get a chill sitting there in your dressing gown and nightie.”
“No nightie, look.” She opened the front of her dressing gown and he saw with a shock that she was naked underneath.
“Lillian, love, you mustn’t do that. Someone could take advantage of you.”
“I can kiss too.” She pushed her face clumsily into his and a moist kiss missed his mouth and pressed against his cheek. He stood up and took her hand. “Come along, young lady. Too pretty you are by half!” He pulled her upright and tied the belt of her dressing gown tightly around her and marched her home.
Danny didn’t sleep for a long time. He lay there smoking cigarette after cigarette and thinking about the girl. She was plump, but had a surprisingly attractive figure. Standing there in the darkness, silhouetted against the rippling water and illuminated by a thin sliver of a moon, she had about her the aura of a water nymph. He couldn’t get the sight of her out of his mind.
He rose early the next morning and, leaving a note to say he didn’t want breakfast, went out and walked on the hills. He returned tired and refreshed and with the decision made. He would persuade Charlotte that love was good when there was a commitment, and he would give that commitment. He would oust Joe and promise to marry her.
The first thing he must do is leave Bertha’s comfortable lodgings and the confused Lillian, and look for something nearer to Eric and the children. He smiled, imagining Mrs Russell’s face if he asked to stay there. Or with Charlotte’s sister Rhoda. Now she looked as if a night of love wouldn’t be refused!
He must stop thinking such thoughts. If he were to marry Charlotte then all other wanderings must cease. He wondered whether Charlotte would be passionate enough to satisfy him and prevent him straying. He pushed aside his doubts and prepared to find out.
* * *
On three separate occasions, Joe had arranged to call and take Charlotte out. Twice for a bicycle ride and once to the cinema. On each occasion he failed to arrive. She later discovered that a phone call from Rhoda, pleading for help with some new crisis, was to blame. Angrily, she had stormed into his new premises where he was still squeezing new additions to his stock on overloaded shelves, and told him he needn’t bother to come at all.
“Stay with Rhoda. She’s obviously more important than me!” she ranted.
“I promised to help her sort out the sale of the house.” Joe was surprised at her outburst. He had phoned and left messages with Harriet. Why was Charlotte so unreasonable? “I did explain, that she wanted some help selling the furniture and dealing with packing and storing her favourite pieces.”
“Explain? You left me waiting on three occasions, Joe Llewellyn, and three chances is all you get!”
“But I phoned and you’re never in. I left word…” She wasn’t listening and Joe shrugged. The Dragon had, in spite of her promise, obviously failed to pass on his messages. He took out the last of the Lucas head-lamp bulbs from the box and piled them on the shelf. Another empty carton for Rhoda. Thank goodness her move was almost completed. His arms ached and all he wanted was to go home and sleep. The shop would close in an hour and he would do just that.
The phone rang and he clambered down from his step ladder to answer it.
“Rhoda? The things in the loft?” He groaned inwardly. Not another evening of heaving and carrying! But the sooner it was finished the sooner he and Charlotte could get themselves sorted. “All right, I’ll be there at seven.”
A few hours later he saw Charlotte walking over the road bridge heading for the library as he was crossing the road to go once more to help Rhoda. They stopped and spoke like two strangers.
“Off to see my dear sister again, I suppose?”
“Well, yes, but she’ll be out of there in a week and I won’t be so tied up. What say we have a good night out? We haven’t celebrated the new shop yet. In fact, why don’t you come with me to Rhoda’s now? There’s only a few bits and pieces to pack, pictures and mirrors mostly, she doesn’t trust herself to pack them safely. And there’s all the baby things she and Brian bought. Stuck them in the loft we did, remember? They have to be disposed of. Come and help, it’ll be painful for her.”
“No thank you. I have other arrangements for this evening. I’m not so desperate that I’ll hang around indefinitely waiting for you to come calling, Joe Llewellyn.”
“Where are you going?” he asked as she walked away.
“None of your business,” she retorted.
* * *
When Joe arrived at Rhoda’s house he was struck by the drabness of it. Pictures and ornaments had been removed from the walls, rugs lifted, light shades removed, shelves and floors scuffed and unpolished. The heart of a home had been broken and removed, he thought sadly. Rhoda had certainly been busy since his last visit a few days previously. Then he saw Ned Hardy.
“Hello, Joe,” the constable smiled. “I had a day off so I called to see if Rhoda needed any help.” He was whispering and Joe looked around to see if Rhoda was there. “I’m afraid I upset her,” Ned went on.
“What happened?”
“She wanted the things brought down from the loft. I – I didn’t know they were baby’s things or I’d have waited until she was out of the house. She saw the box filled with toys and – well, she’s in her room sobbing as if it happened yesterday.”
The man looked so upset Joe almost smiled. “Don’t blame yourself. It was what I came for. The same would have happened if I’d brought them down. But while she’s out of the way, shall we get rid of them?”
“Good idea. But where will they go? She won’t want them packed with the furniture that’s going into store, will she?”
“We’ll take them up to the Dragon,” Joe decided.
“The Dragon?” Ned queried. Joe explained as he and Ned repacked the toys, clothes and the cot, and put it into the garage until they could arrange for it to be taken up to Mill House.
“Do you come here often?” Joe asked casually, seeing an opportunity to end his constant response to calls for help.
“I ring every day and call in whenever I have a chance,” Ned replied. “I’m – very fond of Rhoda, glad to help.”
“Watch yourself, then, boy!” Joe laughed. “Beautiful she is, bu
t expensive and very much the Dragon’s daughter!”
* * *
Danny met Charlotte that evening in a prearranged date. Instead of catching the train to some ready-made entertainments, he took her beyond the railway, up on the lower hills on the opposite side from the hill of mills. The land was poorer here. A few smallholdings and isolated cottages were dotted around the sloping fields and almost barren scrubland. A few sheep roamed, grazing on the grasses. The earth was drained by stony soil and patches of unfertile gravel. Danny chose it because it was an unattractive place where few chose to wander. Privacy was what he needed.
In a dell caused by a wartime bomb, now recolonized by wild flowers and grasses, he sat down, offered her his coat to sit on and took out a bottle of gin. It was not his favourite tipple but he had learned that women liked gin better than whisky. To his chagrin, he was told firmly that Charlotte liked neither.
The evening, planned to lead to seduction and declarations of love, was not a success. Charlotte was uneasy; Danny’s excuses for altering their plans from a cinema visit to a walk on these dreary fields seemed weak: that it was too warm and sunny to waste in the cinema; that they should enjoy the warm weather and flower-filled countryside while they could. It didn’t sound like Danny at all.
Sensing the change in him, she was unable to relax. Tension increased as he began to kiss her, pressing his long body on hers, and her response was to become angry and a little frightened. She knew that if he wanted to force her he could, and she reacted by starting an argument.
“Get off, Danny, you’re heavy and bony and you’re hurting me.”
“I’m sorry Charlotte but I find it impossible not to try and make love to you. You’re so desirable you jangle my senses. Seductive, that’s what you are. Seductive. And you’re driving me crazy.”
“Danny, I can’t. I’m not made that way.”
“You don’t want to?”
“Of course I want to. But I know we must wait for some things in life and lovemaking is one of them.”
“Wait for marriage, you mean?” When she didn’t reply he went on, “Marriage is what I want, Charlotte. I have enough money to make a start. Nothing grand, mind, but better than that old butcher’s shop! Say you’ll marry me. Let’s get engaged on my next shore leave, tell the world that we’re together for always and always.” His voice lowered and his lips touched her neck, his hands began once more to explore her body. But instead of succumbing to his caresses she moved away.
“I don’t know, Danny. I think I love you but—”
“But there’s Joe,” he finished for her. He sat up and looked deep into her eyes. Experience had taught him this was effective. “Tell Joe. Tell him before I come back next time. I want us to start with everything straight and perfect between us. In the meantime, wear this.” He handed her a ring, one he had used before to encourage a hesitant lover. “It isn’t an engagement ring, we’ll choose that together, although you might like to start looking. Anything up to a hundred pounds, how will that do?”
“A hundred pounds? On a seaman’s wage?”
“I have enough to give you the best and the best is what you deserve.” She kissed him then but without the intensity that would have given him hope. He sighed inwardly, pocketed the bottle of gin and walked her home. They wrapped their arms around each other but were isolated in private thoughts; Danny wondering if he had made a mistake by proposing to her: Charlotte thinking of Joe.
Joe spent so much time with Rhoda. Perhaps, if she did hint at an engagement in a couple of months’ time, he would come back to her. But no, dishonesty wasn’t her way.
It was still only nine o’clock when Danny kissed Charlotte good night and walked back to Bertha’s house. He didn’t go inside but sat on the bank near where he had found Lillian late the previous evening, and took out the bottle of gin. Two hours later he was still there. The level of gin was greatly reduced by the time Lillian appeared out of the darkness. Again he was reminded of legends of water nymphs as she glided slowly, heavily, towards him, bare feet hidden by the grass. Her dressing gown was swinging open, revealing her plump young body. He didn’t see the face of a child above the mature curves. In his drunken state he saw only a desirable woman, offering herself to him, and he thought no further than that.
* * *
Charlotte’s mother took the news of Danny’s proposal calmly. She did not want Charlotte to marry. She knew she was being selfish but with Eric and his “other family” to cope with, Peter ill and Rhoda needing comfort, she was utterly dependent on her elder daughter. Charlotte was such a good organiser.
“Oh, well, it won’t be a quick marriage in a registry office like that Joe suggested. Danny at least will do things properly, I’m sure. Next year is it? So there’s time to plan it all? Do it in style?”
“I don’t know, Mam. I’m not sure I’ll accept.” She showed her mother the ring Danny had given her.
“That’s not an engagement ring, is it? A cheap old thing like that?” Harriet was horrified.
“No, he said I can look for one costing up to a hundred pounds.”
“That’s more like it. But where does he find that sort of money, and him a seaman?”
“I don’t know. He seems to have plenty of spending money but there’s no explanation of where he gets it.”
“Well, at least he’s got it, and not afraid to spend it either.” Harriet patted her solemn-faced daughter and added firmly, “End of next year then, say, October 1951, is it? Give us time to sort things.” Charlotte forced a smile and tried to raise her spirits in preparation for telling her father and her uncle.
In Vi and Willie’s café, that great seat of learning, Harriet announced that her daughter was about to become engaged to Danny.
Charlotte was angry and worried. She should have been given time to discuss it with Joe, warn him about what she was considering. She wanted to wait, and tell him when she was really sure – and she was far from sure.
A false gaiety became the pattern for the following weeks. Danny had returned to his ship and she saw little of Joe. She smiled, laughed and pretended that she was happy. Everyone she met offered their congratulations as news spread and her spurious joy increased with every word. She knew Joe had heard but on the rare occasions when they came face to face he did not refer to it at all. He simply asked about Peter and made no attempt to arrange to see her alone.
* * *
It was September before Rhoda’s house was sold. To Charlotte’s dismay. her sister returned to the family home. This only added to Charlotte’s burden; an extra mouth to fill, another person to clear up after, even though Rhoda promised to do her share. The worst though, was having to share her room. She went home one day and found all her clothes in untidy piles in a corner of her bedroom. The drawers were no longer hers, the wardrobe was filled with Rhoda’s clothes which, she insisted, couldn’t be crushed. Shelves had been cleared to make room for Rhoda’s enormous collection of shoes. Miranda found her a spare cupboard and dared Rhoda to commandeer it, and placed it on the landing for her outside the sisters’ room.
But at least there was the consolation that, with Rhoda keeping her mother amused, there were frequent opportunities to spend time with her uncle and Jack Roberts.
Her father remained aloof from the minor complications of his first family. His only comment on her proposed engagement was a smile, a pat and a warning to be certain before putting the golden ring on her finger. It wasn’t said with any real concern, Charlotte thought sadly. It was what he would say to any stranger.
A few friends gave her gifts to put in her bottom drawer and instead of excitement at the prospect of becoming Mrs Daniel Saunders, with five unofficial sisters-in-law and a baby brother, she felt that once more life was pushing her helter-skelter along a path she had not chosen.
The relationships were confusing. “Can I marry my own father’s stepson? Will I be my father’s stepdaughter-in-law as well as his daughter?” she laughingly asked Harriet. Her
mother did not join in the laughter.
“Your father’s second family are not legal and never will be,” she said solemnly.
Charlotte missed Joe desperately. She wished he would come and drag her from her mother’s house and take her away to a quiet place where they could talk, resolve all of their difficulties and float away on a magic carpet to a magical place where they would be happy. Not a palace, she thought with a wry chuckle, just their marble hall above the old butcher’s shop.
She wondered, with a stab of pain, if it might be her sister who would actually live there one day. Joe and she seemed to be growing very close. Twice she passed the new shop to see Rhoda there, helping to serve customers. Joe had not mentioned the ending of their engagement and the beginning of her new one, although she was certain he must know.
“I see you have a new assistant.” she said when she saw Joe standing in the doorway, checking on his display of wing mirrors and indicators. “I can’t imagine Rhoda enjoying that for long.”
“She was only minding the shop while I finished refilling the window,” he said. “I’ve just cleaned it out.”
“I know you always do it weekly,” she said with a hint of nostalgia. “I did it for you once or twice.”
“Rhoda hasn’t your skill,” Joe replied flatly. “you were able to pack more items in than I can, and without it looking overcrowded.”
“Is business what you hoped it would be?”
“Great it is, but I miss the kids coming in with their bike repairs.”
“Things change and some things have to be left behind, don’t they?”
“So it seems,” he said pointedly. “Like old loves being pushed aside for the new.” He was referring to Danny but Charlotte thought he was referring to his new affection for Rhoda.
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