Becky had still not woken. Delighted with the surprise the photographs would give her, Katrin hurriedly replaced the camera in the gas mask box, then noticed the envelope that had been dropped onto the bed.
A letter from Robert Eldon?
She stared at the envelope.
To send him a photograph, to congratulate him on the birth of the child, she would need his military address and to ask Becky would entail explanations which would ruin the planned surprise.
She had promised herself she would tell Robert Eldon the true parentage of Becky’s child, a promise she would not suffer be broken now!
Katrin reached to the envelope.
Not a letter from Robert Eldon! A letter to Robert Eldon!
‘Kate, did mother let you in?’ Her voice thick and drowsy, blue eyes blinking rapidly as though sleep still had them prisoner, Becky glanced at the half open doorway, ‘Did her say for you to come up?’
Katrin’s smile lied easily as the one ready on her tongue. ‘I looked for her in the Civic Restaurant but she was probably busy in the kitchens, but I knew she would have told me to come see you.’
‘But her wouldn’t!’ Disturbed by the sharp cry, the infant whimpered and Becky drew the cover across the small head, a flash of alarm in the look she directed to Katrin. ‘Her wouldn’t have said to come, her don’t let nobody come, and if her finds you’ve been to the house then all hell will break loose!’
Tears, anguish, fear! How brightly they shone in those blue, blue eyes . . . and how she delighted in seeing them. But it was not the moment to allow Katrin Whitman’s emotions to show through, for now the charade must continue.
‘Becky.’ She adopted a pose of sympathy. ‘What is so awful? Tell me what is wrong.’
Arms jerking the child held against her chest, Becky laughed despairingly. ‘This be what’s wrong. I don’t want it, I never wanted it, I tried everythin’ I could think of to get rid of it but nothin’ worked. Oh Lord Kate, why did nothin’ work?’
Masking a flush of pleasure Katrin said quietly, ‘You are overtired from the birth, you will feel differently in a few days, especially when telling Rob the good news.’
‘I can’t tell Rob, he mustn’t know! Oh help me Kate, help me please, tell me what to do.’
Firm where she had been sympathetic she said, ‘First thing you must do is lay the baby back in his bed, you must not risk falling asleep with him in your arms. It has been known for infants to be smothered by a mother so worn out and weary she has dropped asleep with the baby still feeding at the breast then has rolled onto it; and you are very tired Becky, best let me lay him down for you then you can sleep yourself.’
‘I ’ave to feed him first.’
‘I ’ave to feed him first.’
Had that reply come a little too quickly?
Queen Street behind her, relieved she had met with no one going to or coming from that house, Katrin walked quickly, following Holyhead Road toward Prodor.
‘. . . it has been known . . . you are very tired . . .’
She had sown the seeds, despondency and misery would water them, it remained only for the crop to sprout.
35
‘Matters are progressing well in Australia.’
Her husband’s letter had not specified what was meant by ‘matters’ but had he done so it would most certainly have been censored by government authorities. While not a military operation, the revolutionary technology behind the project must be protected to the same degree. He would be returning next month, returning to find his wife showing no sign of pregnancy.
Sitting on the tram from Wolverhampton, Katrin’s stare was intense but oblivious. Broken buildings, blackened roofless houses went unobserved, her mind too caught up in the problem facing her: how to tell Arthur Whitman he was not to be a father. It had been too soon to fake a miscarriage before his leaving England, and since? She had pushed that aside. To write she had lost the baby would have been simple enough, but on returning home Arthur may speak with their doctor, who would be obliged to say he had not been consulted, that he was not aware of any miscarriage.
That could not be allowed to happen! She must think of something, but short of throwing herself downstairs, which she had no intention of doing, she had come up with no idea.
‘Can’t stay on the tram luv, don’t be allowed.’
Katrin turned, a sharp tut of irritation expressing her displeasure at the disturbance.
The woman said, almost apologetically, ‘It be a nuisance, Lord we all knows that! But like wi’ so many other things we be called on to do while this war be goin’ on, we ’ave to grin an’ bear it.’ Heaving a small girl from her knee, juggling with a large basket, she struggled from her seat and followed the child into the aisle. She cast a brief look back to where Katrin still sat. ‘Stop you there if you will,’ she called back, ‘but think on, wench, stubbornness an’ folly goes ’and in ’and wi’ regret followin’ on behind. You be slow gettin’ off this tram an’ could be you’ll meet regret sooner than y’ look to.’
What on earth was all the fuss about? Conducting rods connecting the tram to overhead electricity cables often became disconnected, it was inconvenient and always exasperating but hardly a reason for mass evacuation, a few minutes and the journey would resume. Let the rest of the passengers do what pleased them, it pleased her to remain seated.
‘Hey!’
A man’s voice, loud and peremptory, drew her glance to the window and Katrin saw the uniformed conductor, his arms gesticulating as he shouted again.
‘Get off! Get off the tram! You ’ave to get off now!’
‘Now!’
How could so small a man have such a powerful voice? The sound grew less and less, drifting behind as Katrin floated down a long dark tunnel.
She had felt in her heart that marriage with Becky Turner was not right for Rob. It had been arranged so hurriedly, almost a hole in the corner affair. The war saw a lot of quick marriages, bridegrooms leaving after a few days to return to the Armed Forces and Rob was no different, he too had had only a few short days at home.
‘But there be a difference Rob.’
She picked up the photograph from the mantelpiece feeling that to hold it might soothe the hurt instinct told her lay in store for her brother, that to hold him as she had when some childhood prank had landed him in trouble would help it go away.
‘A lot of marriages happen quicker than maybe,’ she whispered to the photograph, ‘but they be between couples who have long been sweethearts, couples one in love as much as the other, but that weren’t so with Becky Turner, was it Rob? Becky don’t feel for you what you feel for her. Oh Rob, I . . .’
Whisper cut off in mid-sentence, Miriam returned the photograph to the mantelpiece as her father entered the room.
‘Did you see her?’
Slumping heavily into the chair drawn close to the iron fireplace, Isaac stared into the glowing bed of the fire and shook his head in reply.
‘No! What was the excuse this time?’ Her retort sharper than intended, Miriam glanced toward the kitchen where Reuben was finishing off his school work, then lowering her voice went on, ‘Mary Turner’s saying Becky is not well, I think that is a lie; there’s no doctor calling at the house and no midwife neither. Dad . . .’ She paused, that same quick stab of instinct thrusting deep inside. ‘Dad, could there be something wrong? Could that baby not be all we hoped?’
‘Ar, wench, there be summat wrong.’
How did he know? She looked at him, sitting with his head sunk into his hands. What gossip had reached his ears? What nasty rumour said so loudly Isaac Eldon would have heard it? He was normally so disparaging of rumour and hearsay, so if it were gossip he had heard, why was it affecting him this way?
Rumour mongering or not, there was something Mary Turner was keeping to herself. Miriam glanced at the photograph of her smiling brother. Was it being kept from Rob also?
She voiced the questions leaping like March hares into her mind.<
br />
‘Dad,’ she asked quietly, ‘do you think Becky will have written to Rob, will he have been told why her mother is being so secretive?’ She broke off, her heart twisting at the misery etched deep on her father’s face.
‘Won’t make no difference whether Becky writes or don’t write, neither will Mary Turner’s tight-lipped way.’
‘But Rob has every right to know if something is wrong with his child.’
‘He’ll know soon enough, wench, your brother will know soon enough.’
‘Dad, what is it you are not telling me?’
Isaac hesitated as if to hold the pain to himself, then took from his pocket an envelope heavily smudged with oil-stained fingerprints. ‘This be what Mary Turner d’aint want seen!’
‘Eh Kate, be you all right? We heard of your bein’ caught up in a raid, bloody Gerries! It’s getting so you don’t be safe nowhere.’
Katrin pushed away thoughts of Isaac Eldon and graced Alice Butler with a smile. ‘I just took a knock to the head, nothing serious.’
‘That’s more than can be said for Wolverhampton, that place took a right poundin’, seems it be another Coventry, so much of it blasted to smithereens; but talk has it them bombers weren’t after that town at all, folk be sayin’ it were Bilston with all of them iron works they was after destroyin’, and it were just this side of Bilston you was hit so maybe folk be right.’
‘It is tragic for any town that is bombed, so many people dead or injured.’
‘That ’itler!’ Alice’s grey eyes sparked loathing, ‘I agree with what my dad says about that man, he should be in Hell with a blanket round ’im.’
Pointedly shuffling the papers she had been dealing with, Katrin’s patience thinned. ‘I think we all agree with your father Alice but . . .’
‘Sorry Kate.’ Alice recognised the none too subtle hint. ‘But I just had to come ask if you’d heard about Becky?’
‘Heard?’
‘So Eldon said nothin’ to you neither.’ Alice was scornful. ‘But there be no real surprise in that, same as when Becky’s little ’un was born, he said nothin’ to anybody about that and it his own grandchild! I tell you Kate, his tongue can be stiller’n that of a man dead a week!’
Katrin’s attention crisped. What was it about his daughter-in-law Isaac Eldon was not eager to discuss?
‘Is Becky and her baby well? Is she being allowed visitors yet? I really would like to see her.’
‘I don’t think you stand much chance, Kate.’
‘Perhaps if I speak with Mrs Turner, ask her nicely.’
Lips trembling, tears glinting Alice murmured, ‘Becky’s little ’un it . . . it’s dead.’
Dead! Was that death due to natural causes or had the seeds she had sown resulted in fruit? Catching her breath, brow drawn together in a display of emotion Katrin gasped. ‘Oh Alice, how dreadful! Becky must be beside herself, I really must go ask her mother . . .’
‘Don’t have nothin’ to do with her mother any more.’ Alice sniffed back tears. ‘Becky’s in prison, the police arrested her two days back. They think Becky killed the babby.’
Katrin sealed the letter she had written and smiled at the address on the envelope.
2493161 Able Seaman Eldon, Portsmouth.
Becky had been charged with smothering her child. She was to be tried for suspected murder.
She had not written of that in the letter, had not enclosed a cutting of the report in the Express and Star newspaper. She had simply enclosed a photograph, an exact copy of the one she had arranged be delivered to Isaac Eldon. Except that this one bore one single line: ‘Congratulations on the birth of your son.’ She need not inform Robert Eldon of his not being the father of Becky’s child; the photograph would do that very well.
‘He’s so ’andsome, tall and tanned.’
Becky had enthused over her American airman.
Affixing an air mail stamp to the envelope, Katrin laughed softly. Bronzed Earl Feldman might have been, but not by the Miami sun.
‘Congratulations Robert on the birth of your black son.’
That had been the reason of allowing no one into the house, of letting no one see the child; Mary Turner had hoped the secret would remain a secret. Had she thought to put it into a home for unwanted children, hoped that way to hide the shame Becky had brought on the family?
Poor Becky, but then she could be forgiven for not recognising Earl Feldman came of West Indian extraction; neither would most people in Wednesbury, seeing the town was without coloured people among its population.
She had fretted the exposure might have been incorrect, that the finished photographs might not clearly show the child’s dark complexion.
But in the event that had been a worry she need not have had, and now she need have none of Arthur Whitman discovering he had been duped into marriage.
Not everybody injured in an air raid counted that lucky, but it had been lucky for her. A bomb falling close to the road had exploded, the blast tipping the tram onto its side and covering her in breaking glass and crumpled metal. Rescued by Civil Defence volunteers and taken to a First Aid Post, she had been found to have suffered no more than bruises, a minor cut to the head and the possibility of concussion, which had not transpired.
That same evening had witnessed the onset of her monthly period. These were always heavy but what was normally an irritation had proved the opposite. She had waited two days before visiting the doctor. Telling of the incident of the bomb she had asked through floods of tears, ‘Is my baby all right?’ The doctor had been sympathetic, . . . perhaps had she called him in when the bleeding started . . . it was most probably due to the shock, she was young and healthy, no reason to believe there would not be other children.
Miscarriage brought about by shock. Not an accurate diagnosis but one Arthur Whitman would have no reason to disbelieve.
Katrin walked upstairs, trailing a hand along the smooth elegant mahogany banister rail.
Freda Evans, five years imprisonment for dealing in black market goods.
Alice Butler, denied her longed-for entry into the Women’s Auxiliary Forces.
Jim Slater, found dead of accidental causes.
Becky Turner, accused of killing her baby.
One by one they had paid. But not every account had been settled satisfactorily.
The laying of information against Isaac Eldon and Reuben Carson had not achieved what she had hoped, the man had not been found guilty of treason.
Entering her bedroom she stared toward the drawer holding the scarf and box which had belonged to Violet Hawley.
‘I have destroyed his son’s marriage, mother,’ she whispered. ‘I have broken the heart of Isaac Eldon’s son, I have made that family the object of gossip in the town and very soon that gossip will become derision, the whole of Wednesbury will point the finger and sneer; but that is not revenge enough for me, mother, nor will I settle for it being punishment enough for Isaac Eldon, for the man who gave away his daughter.’
36
‘WEDNESBURY WOMAN GUILTY’.
Katrin smiled at the headline in the local newspaper. The trial at Stafford Crown Court had not taken long. The judge summed up that while an accusation of murder could not be proven, neither could the death of the infant be proven purely accidental, therefore he must declare a verdict of ‘Manslaughter due to neglect, the penalty for which is to serve for fifteen years in one of His Majesty’s prisons.’
Freda five, Becky fifteen, what a pity Alice Butler’s payment was not reckoned in years. It was to be regretted she could not have been dealt a harsher blow than non-admittance into the Women’s Auxiliary Services but then a little revenge was better than none at all.
Vexation a sudden dart in her veins, she flung the newspaper aside. A little revenge was all she had got from sending one of those photographs to Isaac Eldon. He had said no word, shown no sign of its effect, no recognition of knowing its sender and that had somehow reduced the feeling of triumph; she had n
ot got from it the satisfaction she had thought, the same as that attempt with his grandson’s maps had brought none. Both had proved futile just as her trying to oust him from Prodor was proving futile.
But she must find a way! And it must be found within the fortnight, for that was when Arthur Whitman would return home.
Two weeks! If Eldon were not gone before Whitman’s arrival then her chance of that ultimate revenge, of taking away the employment Eldon had known and loved almost his entire life, of breaking the last straw which would hold that life together would be lost, for Arthur would never dismiss the man he regarded more as a friend than an employee.
‘Excuse me, Mrs Whitman.’
Turning to face the middle-aged woman who for years had cleaned three times weekly at Woden Place, Katrin’s hiss conveyed displeasure at the interruption.
‘I just wants to be sure,’ the woman went on, ignoring Katrin’s frown, ‘the things you wanted I should tek along to the Welfare Depot, be it them that be on your bed?’
‘Yes!’ Katrin answered shortly, then forced a smile. ‘Sorry Mrs Briggs, I was a million miles away. Yes, please, it’s very good of you to take them.’
‘Saves them folk comin’ to collect ’em and it be no trouble to me seein’ I lives but a street from that depot; so I’ll just nip upstairs and fetch ’em, will I?’
Katrin followed the woman from the room, turning aside into the study as the telephone rang.
That telephone call of two weeks ago had left her trembling from shock. Her husband and her father were both dead. The merchant ship they were travelling home on had been torpedoed by a German submarine; both were killed in the initial blast.
A Step Too Far Page 27