by Lizzie Lane
‘I think we’ve already decided that Mrs Powell doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Now let’s get back to these hamburgers …’
‘Was she a whore?’ Her cousin’s interruption was unwelcome but couldn’t be ignored. Frances had a pained expression on her face.
‘No. Of course not,’ said Ruby, sounding more confident than she felt. ‘She may not have been perfect, but then none of us are, and besides, she was your mother. That has to be all that matters.’
‘Did she leave because she didn’t love me?’
‘She was devastated after the death of your father. Grief made her ill. People can get very ill when somebody they love dies. Something cracks inside of them.’
‘Like a plate left too near the gas?’
‘Something like that.’
Ruby had made it up. She really couldn’t recall whether Mildred had become ill after Uncle Sefton’s death, but took the view that the hurt Frances was feeling – thanks to Mrs Powell – had to be dealt with and healed. If it meant she had to lie, then so be it. The girl didn’t deserve to be upset like this.
Frances moped over her food all through supper, and although Ruby was fully aware of her mood, Stan Sweet was otherwise engaged. There were so many things on his mind, everything in fact from how well his cabbages were growing, to facing his true feelings about Bettina Hicks. Everyone in the village knew he regularly frequented Stratham House, ostensibly to take care of her garden. He hated the idea that he and she being friends was the subject of idle gossip.
In his estimation, gossiping about respectable folks was something only the idle had time to do. He didn’t hold with it himself and never gossiped about anyone. So far, any accusing eyes that had strayed his way had been soundly stared into silence. But he couldn’t do it for ever.
Things were somewhat confused and dour at present, what with that and young Charlie a bit under the weather; plus Frances was growing fast, and becoming the spit of her mother.
If he had been able to read Frances’s mind, he would know that she was still trying to figure out a way of finding the woman who’d abandoned her as a child.
Stan turned back to his grandson. ‘Now come on, young man. You’ll never grow big and strong like your granddad if you don’t eat your dinner.’
Young Charlie leaned away from his grandfather and the food, grizzling and rubbing at his eyes. No matter what Stan did, Charlie shook his head and clamped his mouth shut.
‘Just a bit,’ said Stan, a spoonful of potato and minced rabbit just inches from Charlie’s mouth.
Charlie brought his fists down from his eyes, held them tightly in front of his mouth and shook his head.
The spoon clattered as Stan let it fall on to the plate. He sighed heavily, his brow furrowed. ‘Do you think he’s sickening for something? He usually clears his plate, especially cottage pie.’
Ruby thought her father looked tired. If things weren’t going one hundred per cent right, he worried. Charlie not eating his dinner was enough to give him a sleepless night. The little boy had been listless for two days now.
‘He looks as though he might be sickening for something,’ said Ruby as she began gathering up the empty plates. ‘A new tooth coming through, I expect.’
She stopped behind Frances’s chair, surprised to see that her food was hardly touched either. ‘Don’t you like my cottage pie?’
Frances shrugged. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘In that case, you can wash up.’
Stan spoke sharply. ‘Good food is not going to go to waste in this house. It can be reheated tomorrow, my girl.’
Frances didn’t look up from her plate but continued to trail a fork through her food. She was thinking how difficult life had become and how different things might have been if her father had lived and her mother hadn’t run off. They’d probably have been very happy together. She might even have had brothers and sisters. In the happy world she’d lost, she wouldn’t have had to wear hand-me-down dresses, and perhaps even the war might never have happened.
Life was unfair and getting more so. On looking at Ruby, a wave of instant resentment swept over her. She didn’t want to wash up, and what was more to the point, she resented Ruby telling her what to do.
Why was it that older people thought they could boss younger people around? What right did they have? And as for her uncle …
Stan was very strict on wasting food. ‘And no apple pie for them who don’t eat their main course.’ Stan looked up at Ruby as an afterthought occurred to him. ‘It is apple pie, isn’t it?’
‘It is.’
‘I don’t want any,’ said Frances. She left the table without asking, went straight to the sink and began the dishes, if begrudgingly.
Stan Sweet placed both hands in the small of his back, stretching his muscles as he got up from the table. ‘Come on, young man,’ he said, looking down at Charlie. ‘Time to brush your teeth and catch the train to toy town. Say goodnight to everyone.’
Charlie usually yelped with glee at Stan’s terminology for going to sleep, but not tonight. Tonight he seemed grumpy and uninterested.
Stan frowned. ‘You don’t seem yourself, little lad. A good night’s sleep might do the trick. Now come on. Kiss your Auntie Ruby and Auntie Frances goodnight.’
Both Ruby and Frances kissed the little boy goodnight.
Ruby smoothed Charlie’s hair back from his hot little face and frowned. It could be just tiredness, but he could also have a temperature.
‘Bunz is already up there,’ she said to Charlie when he asked for the toy rabbit he had loved for most of his life.
The little boy rubbed his eyes but grizzled despairingly and failed to say goodnight to anyone.
Ruby continued to clear away the things from the table while Frances washed up in complete silence.
One sideways glance told her that Frances was still mulling on what had been said about her mother. She thought about her own mother, who had died when she and Mary were still babies. There were times when she’d wondered how different life might have been if she’d lived. How would I feel, she wondered, if my mother had abandoned me and was still alive somewhere?
Picking up a clean tea towel, Ruby joined Frances at the kitchen sink.
Keeping her voice low, Ruby said, ‘Look, Frances, if there’s anything I can do to help you find your mother, I will.’
Frances bit her lip and did not raise her eyes from the sink full of dishes.
‘Uncle Stan won’t like it if you do. He hated my mother.’ Her tone was bitter.
Ruby opened her mouth to protest that it wasn’t true, but stopped herself. On those rare occasions when her father had mentioned Mildred, it was never flattering. Sometimes he’d sounded as though he blamed her for his brother’s death.
Ruby took a deep breath. ‘My father loves you. Just remember that.’
‘Not as much as he loves you!’ Frances said petulantly. ‘After all, you’re a daughter. I’m only his niece!’
‘That’s silly.’
‘Is it?’
Ruby bit her bottom lip and thought about what to say next. Nothing came immediately to mind. She reminded herself that her cousin was barely sixteen. Sixteen was an awkward age. Youth was a confusing time, a rickety bridge between childhood and adulthood. She’ll get over it, she told herself. We all have to go through it.
Distraction came in the form of her father coming back downstairs wearing a worried frown.
‘Dad, you look as though you’ve found sixpence and lost half a crown,’ Ruby said laughingly.
‘I think that boy might be sickening for something.’
Frances kept her head down as she shook the wetness from her hands. Ruby slowed in wiping the last plate.
‘I must admit he does seem a bit hot,’ she said, frowning. ‘How about we call for the doctor?’
Stan rubbed at his face. He was feeling tired. Absorbed in worrying about his grandson, he failed to notice his niece’s sullen mood.
&nb
sp; ‘I don’t know,’ he said, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘But it’s not like the little lad not to eat.’
The dishes were finished and ready to be placed in the old Welsh dresser.
Ruby gave her father’s arm a reassuring squeeze. ‘Don’t worry, Dad. Children get their moods, unless he just didn’t like my cottage pie,’ she said jokingly.
Her father gave a half-laugh. ‘I don’t believe he didn’t like it. I liked it. I would even go so far as to say that your cottage pie is better than our Mary’s – though don’t ever tell her that, will you!’
Ruby smiled. ‘It’s a secret.’
Looking decidedly sullen, Frances took her leave and muttered that she was off to bed. Both her Uncle Stan and Ruby wished her goodnight.
Ruby waited for the door to close behind her cousin before turning to her father, impatient to broach the subject Frances was so obviously mooning about.
He was just reaching for his pipe, thinking he’d go out back and have a smoke before settling down with his newspaper, when he caught sight of his daughter’s face.
‘Something troubling you?’
‘Dad, I need to talk to you about Frances.’ She purposely lowered her voice until it was only just above a whisper. Frances might be loitering in the hallway and she didn’t want to be overheard. After making sure the door was firmly shut, she went on to tell him what Mrs Powell had said and how upset Frances had been. ‘I didn’t know what to say.’
He shook his head and bit down on the stem of his unlit pipe. ‘That bloody woman! And she calls herself a Christian? It’s my opinion there are better Christians outside the church on a Sunday than there are in it!’
Ruby blanched at her father swearing. It wasn’t often he did that.
Ruby’s voice was soft when she told him, ‘Frances was – is – very upset. She asked me whether her mother left because she didn’t love her. And Mrs Powell told her that her mother had been a whore – that was the word she used. I tried to reassure her, but in all honesty, I’m in no position to say anything about her mother. I was younger than Frances is now when she left. I really don’t remember much about her.’
Stan Sweet chewed his pipe stem thoughtfully, picked up the poker and thrust it into the coals burning in the hearth. For a moment, he stood there silently, watching flickers of flame lick around the hard nubs of coal.
Finally, once he’d dredged through his memories of those times, he sighed heavily and shook his head. ‘The day was bound to come and I suppose it’s only right she should want to find out more about her, even meet her face to face. I suppose I should have a talk with her.’
‘I think you should. Is there anything I can say to help?’ asked Ruby.
His expression was grim as he replaced the poker on to a companion set at the side of the fire.
‘It’s my fault. I kept putting off speaking to her about it, hoping, I suppose, that she’d forget she ever had a mother – silly, now I think of it, but there you are …’
‘I would want to know.’ Ruby’s tone was sharp.
Her father’s jaw tightened. His thoughts went back to days gone by. If only Sefton hadn’t died. If only there had been no Great War. If only Mildred had been better than she was. There was, he reflected, a whole roomful of ‘if only’s.
He retreated from his thoughts to see Ruby eyeing him in the stiff manner Sarah used to adopt when he was procrastinating about something important.
‘When are you going to tell her?’ Her tone was similar. She was definitely her mother’s daughter. ‘It’s her mother, Dad. She should have the right to make up her own mind about meeting her or not.’
‘She’s only a girl still – she’s too young to know what she wants. I’ll tell her when she’s older, when she’s twenty-one!’
His raised voice made Ruby jump. Like swearing, raising his voice wasn’t something he did often.
‘By then her mother might have moved on from wherever you think she may be at present – or is that what you’re hoping for? It’s not right, Dad. You have to give her the choice. She’s almost sixteen. She’s old enough.’
He turned and stared at the grate, his face taking on the glow of the coal fire as though the words he needed to say were dancing along with the flames.
‘You’re right. I can’t put it off any longer. I’ll choose my time, though. Certainly not right now. She’s gone to bed and we all need to be up early in the morning. There’s bread to be made and woe betide me if there’s not enough to fill the shelves!’
Ruby stood silently, wondering at her father’s reluctance. A man who had fought in the Great War, as it was now called, the one that had lasted from 1914 to 1918, nobody could say he was cowardly. However, it seemed to Ruby that in this instance he really did fear talking to his niece about her mother. Fancy that! He’d braved fighting a bloodthirsty army back then, but lacked the courage to talk to a young girl!
Cosy in her bed later that night, Ruby was just falling asleep when she heard an owl calling to its mate. She guessed the sound came from the old ruined barn on the opposite side of the road, its roof fallen in, two walls tumbled down and a forest of thistles hiding its broken foundations. Her eyes flickered open. The room was pitch black. She heard the bark of a fox then the screech of a rabbit. The fox had caught its supper.
That’s when it came to her about the hamburgers. Rabbit hamburgers. Perhaps she should rename them bunny burgers. That’s a good name, she decided. As good as sweets by the Sweets. Yes, she thought as she slowly drifted into sleep. Bunny burgers. That’s what she’d make for Frances’s birthday party. Hopefully the party would go some way to cheering her up.
Stan Sweet heard that same owl calling from the dilapidated wreck of the barn in the field at the top of Cowhorn Hill. The haunting sound drew him from his bed.
Maintaining blackout rules, he didn’t switch the light on before drawing back the curtains.
Across the road, a black shape flexed its great dark wings as it set out for a night’s hunting. A ragged cloud left the moon with enough light for him to pick out the black outlines of trees. The scene was one he never tired of, yet tonight he wasn’t really seeing it. Tonight he was thinking of what Gertrude Powell had said to young Frances. The woman wasn’t right in the head, but that was no excuse for interfering in other folks’ business. Yes, Mildred had been less than a lady, but to upset a child – and he still thought of Frances as a child – was unforgiveable.
He resolved there and then that some time tomorrow he would speak to Frances about her mother, but first he would call in on Bettina Hicks, tell her what had occurred and ask her advice. He needed a woman’s counsel and he still thought of Ruby as a girl. Bettina could sometimes see the better angle to take, though on this occasion he doubted it. There were other options, of course. He could go along and tackle Mrs Powell direct, but then what good would that do? The fact was that while Mildred wasn’t a whore, she had been a good-time girl, probably still was. But how would Frances take the truth and was there anything he could do to help the situation?
Tomorrow, he thought, turning away from the window. Sleep on it and see how it looks tomorrow.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Early the following morning, Ruby got herself ready for her morning’s work at a local factory. Yet another talk and baking demonstration was on the cards. The high spot would be mentioning bunny burgers, ‘to impress our American allies’.
Her father’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
‘Is young Charlie still in bed?’ her father asked anxiously, his arms full of the bread he’d baked freshly that morning.
‘Yes. I thought a good sleep might do him good.’ She paused. ‘You will let me know if he gets worse?’
Her father promised that he would. ‘Try not to worry.’
It was easy to say, and although she would have preferred to stay home and look after her nephew, she had a job to do. Ruby loved her job, but today Charlie would be on her mind. She consoled herself with the fact tha
t her father and her cousin Frances would be there to look after the little chap.
‘Just keep an eye on him,’ Ruby added.
‘If he isn’t any better after a good sleep, I’ll call the doctor.’
Ruby frowned. ‘I feel awful leaving you with the problem, but I’ve already promised …’
He waved a hand dismissively. ‘I brought up three of you after your mother died. I know what to do. Anyway, Frances is here to run the shop so I can spend some time with the boy. You get on to your work. I’ll pop up now and see how he is.’
At one time Ruby had disliked driving, but that was when she’d first started working for the Ministry of Food. Once Johnnie had gone away, she had taken the bull by the horns, slipped behind the wheel of the little black Austin and drove confidently to the various venues. As she hurtled along country lanes and wider roads, she would smile at the thought of Johnnie’s cheeky ways and witty remarks, and how he never allowed her to get above her station. No airs and graces for him, she thought, smiling to herself. If there was a man to keep her feet firmly on the ground, John Smith was that man.
Hostile at first to what he regarded as non-essential war work, their relationship had not started well. After a while, once they’d got to know each other, he’d come round, especially after she’d involved him in her cooking demonstrations – much to his earlier reluctance to get involved.
At one point she’d forced him into an old-fashioned cross-over apron and got him to help her mixing and making dough. Amused at the sight of a man wearing a flowered apron over his khaki uniform, the women had laughed uproariously, his leg pulled mercilessly.
But that was before he’d gone away to serve in the Far East.
In the midst of mixing a bowl of dough or slicing up the ingredients for a meatless pie, she found herself glancing up at the audience and sometimes, just sometimes, thinking she saw him sitting there. On other occasions, she found herself surveying those standing against the walls of the church hall, factory canteen or social club, seeking the familiar sardonic smile, the craggy looks, the amusement simmering in his eyes.