The dead room. The punishment room. Fleur shuddered. It all sounded like another world from the safe and happy childhood she had known.
‘It was then I found out about my own mother – just who she was. Maybe if all that hadn’t happened, I might never have known.’ For a long moment, Jake was silent, then he came back to finish his telling of the story. ‘That was when Meg changed from her hard and calculating ways. Almost losing her son had jolted her because there was never any doubt about her love for him. After that . . .’ Jake sighed softly. ‘She left the district and I . . . I never saw her again. Not until your wedding day, Fleur.’
‘I suppose poor old Clara Finch wanted something of her sweetheart’s,’ Fleur said with understanding. ‘She wanted Percy’s son.’
‘Ah,’ Jake said, ‘but that’s the irony of it all. You see, love, Robbie wasn’t Percy’s child.’
Her eyes wide, Fleur stared at him wordlessly. Surely, after all, her father wasn’t about to tell her that he was, in truth, Robbie’s father too?
‘Perhaps you can’t see it like I can, because you wouldn’t remember his father as a young man.’
Her voice was husky as she asked hesitantly, ‘Dad, just tell me. Who was Robbie’s father?’
‘The man you call Uncle Philip. Dr Philip Collins.’
‘I can’t believe it. I mean, how—?’
Despite the seriousness of their talk and all the long-held secrets he had just revealed, Jake laughed. ‘Now surely I don’t need to be explaining the facts of life to you, lass, do I?’
Fleur smiled briefly and shook her head. ‘I mean, when did it happen? Before he married Aunt Louisa?’
Sadly, Jake shook his head. ‘No, love, nothing so above board as that, I’m sorry to say. They had an affair.’ His mouth hardened again. ‘While Percy was ill with the influenza that killed him. Of course, Meg was able to make out the child was his, but there’s no hiding it now. Not for anyone who remembered Philip in his younger days and then . . . saw your Robbie.’
‘Oh, Dad.’ Fleur clutched his arm. ‘Auntie Louisa saw him. I introduced them. In a cafe in South Monkford. Just after I’d met him. You know – the day I invited them out to the farm and—’ She bit her lip. ‘Aunt Louisa seemed – well – odd. Now I know why. She . . . she must have guessed.’
Slowly, Jake nodded. ‘I wondered at the time if she suspected. Poor Louisa, specially as she’s never had any family herself.’
‘Did Uncle Philip know he had a son?’
‘I’ve no idea. But knowing Meg as she was then, I’ve no doubt she told him. Maybe—’ He began to say something and then stopped himself. ‘No, that’s not fair to speculate. I shouldn’t judge her.’
‘No, none of us should. I certainly won’t. She’s Robbie’s mum and she’s been kind to me and . . . and she’s suffering now. Whatever she did in the past, Dad, she’s paying for it now.’
‘Aye, love,’ Jake said sadly. ‘I know she is.’
And once more the haunted faraway look that Fleur had so often seen on her father’s face was there again. But now, she understood exactly what caused it.
Thirty-Nine
‘Oh, Philip – I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have . . . I mean . . . I wish—’
‘Now, now, my dear. What’s the matter?’
Philip took her arm calmly and led her into the front sitting room. The huge room was cold; no welcoming fire burned in the grate. They were trying to economize on coal and only lit the fire when the room was to be used for a lengthy period. Otherwise, they now sat in the two easy chairs in the corner of the kitchen, close to the wireless on which Philip loved to hear the latest war news.
Louisa clung to him. ‘Forgive me, Philip, oh, say you forgive me.’
‘I’m sure I shall, darling, if only I knew what it is I’m supposed to be forgiving. Here, sit down. Let me make us both some tea.’
‘No, no, I should do that. That’s my job.’
‘Not just at this moment. I can see you’re upset. Sit down whilst I make it and then we’ll talk about it. Whatever it is.’
‘But . . . but you’ve got surgery, haven’t you?’
‘There’s no one out there at the moment. My patients are remarkably healthy today, it seems.’ He smiled at her archly, trying to lighten her mood. ‘I must be a better doctor than I thought.’
‘Oh, Philip, you’re a wonderful doctor.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘A wonderful man. I don’t deserve you. I . . .’
‘There, there, my dear. Please, don’t upset yourself. We’ll sort it all out – whatever it is.’
Philip was becoming increasingly worried about his wife. From being a calm, serene, perfect doctor’s wife, she had in recent weeks become nervy and irritable and weepy. Had she been one of his patients, he would by now have diagnosed a nervous breakdown. And whilst he could scarcely believe – didn’t want to believe – that that was what might be happening to his wife, ethics aside, it would be better for her to be treated by someone else. He was no expert in psychiatric cases.
He shuddered at the thought, but if that was the case, then it would have to be faced. She was such a tender-hearted person and even though they weren’t experiencing particular hardship themselves, nor the loss of a close relative, still the community as a whole was being badly hit. And Louisa felt it, he knew. As he set her cup of tea on a small table beside her, he sat down opposite, leant forward and took her hands in his. ‘Now,’ he said in the kindly but firm tone he adopted when speaking to a distraught patient, ‘tell me what is troubling you.’
Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks.
‘Oh, Philip – he’s dead.’
‘Who’s dead, my love?’
She raised her red-rimmed eyes to look into his face as she whispered, ‘Meg’s boy. He’s – he’s missing, believed killed.’
She felt his hands holding hers twitch involuntarily and saw the colour drain from his face. They stared at each other for long moments before, haltingly, Louisa broke the silence. ‘You . . . you do know who he really is, don’t you, Philip? Who . . . who his father is?’
The colour flooded into his face and she had her answer without him saying a word. Before he could speak, she rushed on. ‘I wish you’d told me. I wish you’d had enough faith in my love for you to have told me the truth at the time. I presume you’ve always known?’
Wordlessly, Philip nodded.
‘I know – I know you wanted to spare me the hurt.’ Now it was she who was giving comfort. ‘The fact that you’d been unfaithful to me – and with Meg of all people. But don’t you see, if only you’d confided in me, perhaps, all those years ago, we could have adopted him? Brought him up as our son. Oh, Philip, I wish you’d told me then.’
He shook his head as he said heavily, ‘No, my dear, it would never have worked. You . . . you say you’d have forgiven me, but you’re speaking now with the benefit of hindsight. Back then, you didn’t know that we’d never have children of our own. You didn’t know that someone else’s son could have filled the void in our lives—’
‘But he was your son, Philip. I could have loved him, I could have—’
‘Could you really, Louisa, have loved Meg’s son? Be honest now, since we’re talking honestly. Let’s be absolutely straight with each other.’
When she didn’t answer, he added softly, ‘No, I thought not.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Besides, Meg wouldn’t let Clara Finch have him, would she?’
‘Of course she wouldn’t,’ Louisa cried now. ‘Meg knew – though Clara Finch didn’t – that he wasn’t Percy’s son. But if you’d wanted him, she’d’ve let him go.’ Her lip curled. ‘Remember how selfish she was, how self-centred? Oh, she’d’ve let you have him like a shot. Been glad to be rid of him, I dare say.’
‘I think you’re wrong, my dear. Whatever Meg may have been – and yes, I admit, she did some reprehensible things—’
‘Reprehensible? Reprehensible, you call it. Unforgivable, I’d call it. Seducing poor Percy. Yes – yes –
she seduced him, Philip. Poor, bumbling Percy Rodwell didn’t know what had hit him when she batted her eyelashes at him and smiled so winningly.’
‘My dear,’ he said softly. ‘We’ve all made mistakes. Especially me.’
Louisa held his gaze as she asked, ‘Do you regret it, Philip?’
His answer was swift and he hoped that it sounded sincere. ‘Of course I do. I wouldn’t have hurt you for the world. Louisa, I’ve always loved you and I always will. You must believe that. Meg was just – was just a stupid, stupid mistake. An aberration. Please – please say you forgive me?’
‘Oh, Philip!’ Tearfully, she threw her arms around his neck. ‘Of course I do. It’s a long time ago. And . . . and you haven’t seen her since. Have you?’
‘No, no. I swear it.’ That part, at least, was true. As for the rest, deep in his heart he couldn’t be sure. He buried his face against his wife’s neck and hugged her tightly, trying to block out the memory of that vibrant red-haired girl who had brought such passion into his life. Even though the affair had been brief, he’d never been able to put her completely out of his mind. And never a day had gone by through all the years since that he had not thought about the son she had borne him and wondered what he looked like.
And now he would never know.
‘So now you know, do you?’ Betsy asked, her mouth tight, as Fleur came back into the house. ‘Heard the whole sorry story?’
Fleur sighed and said flatly, ‘Yes. If that’s what you like to call it. Yes, I think I’ve heard it all.’
‘Well – it is a sorry tale. Your father loved her. I expect you’ve guessed that now, haven’t you? Even if he hasn’t admitted it.’
‘He did admit it, Mum,’ Fleur said simply. ‘He loved her then. Not now. Not since he fell in love with you and married you.’
‘Oh well, if that’s what you like to think.’
‘Look, Mum. Let’s have all this out – once and for all. Just what is it that upsets you so much? Do you think Dad had an affair with her? Maybe you think it’s been going on all these years. I mean, with all your insinuations you had us – me and Robbie, I mean – thinking that we were half-brother and sister.’
‘Wha-at!’
‘Oh, you can sound surprised, but look at it from our point of view. That first day you were screaming at Dad that he was in love with her and that he’s loved her all these years. And you were so . . . so vitriolic towards Robbie’s mother. And him. It was something terrible. It was all we could think of.’
Betsy wriggled her shoulders. ‘Well, I don’t know, do I? Maybe they did have an affair. Maybe it has been going on all these years. He’s had plenty of chances. All those supposed trips to market. How do I know where he really went?’
Fleur shook her head. It saddened her to think that, perhaps for the whole of her married life, Betsy had lived with the torment of imagining her husband was being unfaithful to her. For the first time, Fleur pitied her mother.
‘Do you want to know what I think?’
‘Does it make any difference?’ Betsy snapped, recovering some of her spirit. ‘I’m no doubt going to hear it anyway.’
‘Dad was in love with Meg, yes, when they were kids in the workhouse.’ She saw her mother flinch at the word that obviously brought back dark, unhappy memories. ‘He owed her a lot. She had spirit. She gave him the courage to get himself out of there. To seek work here.’ She pointed down at the ground, indicating their home, the farm, everything he now owned. Fleur paused a moment, letting her words sink in. And driving her point home she added, ‘Just think, Mum, if he hadn’t done that he – and you – wouldn’t have everything you have now. Where would you have been, eh? Still in the workhouse?’
‘It closed in ’twenty-nine,’ Betsy murmured, but her protests now were without substance.
‘But you wouldn’t be here, would you? You wouldn’t have been taken in and treated like the Smallwoods’ son and daughter and left their farm because their own daughter had run away.’
A spark of sudden interest ignited in Betsy’s eyes. ‘Is it really her dad that lives with her?’
Fleur sighed inwardly. Still, her mother could not bring herself to speak Meg’s name. ‘Yes, it is. Evidently the girl he ran off with – Alice, was it?’
Betsy nodded.
‘She left him and went off with someone else. He tried to follow her, but this chap got his cronies to beat him up.’
Betsy sniffed and her mouth hardened. ‘Serves him right. And her? What happened to Alice Smallwood?’
Fleur shrugged. ‘No one knows.’
‘She was a bad ’un.’
‘As bad as Meg?’ Fleur put in slyly.
‘’Bout the same,’ Betsy answered, refusing to give any quarter. ‘Made a good pair, they did.’
There was a long silence before Fleur said softly, ‘Meg’s changed, Mum. She’s not the girl you remember any more. Not, by all accounts, since she had Robbie. Having a baby changed her. She made some mistakes, did some terrible things. I see that now and I do understand how it must have hurt you to think that Dad loved her. But he chose you. He married you and he’s stayed with you.’
‘And that’s supposed to comfort me, is it? When all the time I think he’s been hankering after her.’
Fleur took in a deep breath. Although she knew that what Betsy said was perhaps true, she had to try to get her mother to get over it and move on. ‘I think “hankering” is perhaps the wrong word. I think he remembers her with fondness. I . . . I suppose you never forget your first love.’ Her voice broke a little, but she carried on bravely. ‘But it was a love between children, Mum. What he has with you is different. Very different.’
Betsy gave a sad smile. For once she knew her daughter was trying to help her, trying to get her to let go of the bitterness and resentment she’d held all through the years. But it was impossible. She couldn’t expect the young girl who’d only loved and known the love of one man to understand. To understand the heart-wrenching pain of knowing that the man you love and live with is, every day, thinking of someone else. Living your whole life believing yourself to be second best. It was a pain that Betsy had lived with all of her adult life – an anguish that Fleur would never understand unless she experienced it for herself. There was only one person who might understand.
She wondered if Louisa Collins had suffered the same wretchedness.
But Fleur was living her own agony. A sharp, intense pain that would never quite go away, but would, Betsy believed, lessen in time even if Fleur could not believe it now.
With a supreme effort Betsy said, ‘I’m sorry about Robbie. Truly. I can’t help how I feel about his mother, but I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Not . . . not even on her.’
Fleur sighed deeply. It was no use. She couldn’t get through to her mother. Betsy would never change.
Forty
Fleur had to face Robbie’s mother, but she didn’t know how she was going to do it. She almost wished now that she had not bullied her father into telling her the secrets of the past. Perhaps they would, as both Jake and Betsy had tried to tell her, have been better left buried. It had changed her view of Meg; she couldn’t help but look at her differently now. It was difficult to imagine the pretty, smiling woman as a scheming temptress who had seduced two men and ignored the man who had always loved her. What puzzled her, though, was why her parents hadn’t told her the truth from the outset when she had first met Robbie. If they had maybe—? No, Fleur was honest enough to answer her own question. No. Nothing they could ever have said would have stopped her. She had fallen in love with Robbie at that very first meeting on the station platform in the blackout and from that moment she’d known – they’d both known – that they had to be together.
The next morning, Fleur packed and came downstairs, ready to leave. She had sponged and pressed her uniform and washed her underwear the previous evening. Now she was ready to go back and get on with fighting the war. The war that had taken away everything she had ever wan
ted and yet, if it hadn’t been for the war, it was unlikely she’d ever have met Robbie.
But she knew that to get back into the thick of it would help. It would help her to feel close to him still.
But, first, there was something else she had to do. She must go to Nottingham. She couldn’t avoid it any longer.
‘So, you’re going back are you?’ Betsy said to her as they sat at breakfast.
‘I’ll take you, love,’ Jake began, but Fleur shook her head.
‘I’m going to Nottingham first. I’m not due back at camp until tomorrow, but I don’t know when I’ll get any more leave. Ma’am has been very good, but . . . but I’m not the only one . . .’ Her voice cracked and she stopped.
Jake cleared his throat and glanced briefly at his wife before saying, ‘Then I’ll take you there.’
Betsy opened her mouth as if to protest, but then thought better of it. She got up, clattered the breakfast dishes together and moved away into the scullery, but her shoulders were tense with disapproval.
‘It’s all right, Dad,’ Fleur said gently. ‘The trains fit up quite nicely, but if you could just run me to the station in town so I can catch the Paddy to the Junction . . .’
When Meg opened the door to her, the two women stood staring at each other for a long moment. At first sight, neither looked any different. Meg was still prettily dressed, with her face cream and powder carefully applied. There was even a pale tinge of lipstick on her generous mouth. And Fleur was smartly turned out in her WAAF uniform.
It wasn’t until they each looked closely into the other’s eyes that they could see the undeniable grief they shared.
‘Oh, Fleur!’ Meg opened her arms and Fleur fell into them, hugging the older woman.
‘Oh, Ma!’ was all she could say, poignantly using Robbie’s pet name for his mother that brought tears to their eyes.
Wish Me Luck Page 29