Valley Affairs
Page 25
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘“Thank you” might be nice,’ Evie said sarcastically.
‘Thank you.’ Nelly spoke as if in a dream. Then her usual distrust of her daughter returned and she said, ‘I ain’t promisin’ to use it, mind.’
They stood discussing the arrangements for a while, Nelly’s eyes glowing with the surprise. As she prepared to leave, she turned to Evie and asked, ‘Oh, can you lend us a couple of cups and saucers? I’m a bit short an’ I’ll ’ave to make tea fer the workmen. Nice that’ll be, a bit of company while George is working.’
‘Remember you’re a married woman,’ George joked, but Evie and Timothy did not laugh.
* * *
Mavis found the first few days in the shop very difficult.
Some spoke to her in a friendly way, but asked questions about Sheila that she found embarrassing. Others refused to allow her to serve them and waited until Amy was free. Amy treated them all in her matter of fact way and gradually things changed. Sheila returned to live at home and the events faded in importance.
Victor Honeyman called at the shop with goods one Wednesday and suggested that he and his sons might come to give Amy a hand with her garden. His interest in her was obvious, but he always brought one of the boys when he called at the house so no scandal attached itself to either of them. But he was becoming a regular visitor at ‘Heulog’.
A few of Amy’s customers would stop by when out for a walk and stay for a cup of tea. Nelly went each week to clean and she and George called with bunches of wild flowers when their walks took them in that direction. Billie Brown also visited occasionally, usually arriving on his tractor. Nelly teased Amy about her men-friends and how easily she managed to get work done.
‘It’s not ’avin’ your ’Arry around to do things,’ she said in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Most people knew ’ow it was between yer and stayed clear. Now, well, them gypsies might be right an’ you’ll be findin’ yerself a handsome ’usband one day soon.’
‘When Mavis accused Freddy of making Sheila pregnant I thought they were right about me looking after a baby,’ she confessed, ‘but only for a moment, mind. I knew Freddy wasn’t likely to be responsible. He’s a bit young anyway, but I’m sure he’d respect a girl too much for that.’
‘Well, ’uman nature being what it is…’ Nelly said and Amy thought it best not to ask what she meant.
Amy called daily on Prue but as the weeks passed Prue seemed to become more withdrawn. Amy tried asking others to call, including the vicar’s wife, but Prue would answer the door to no one but her sister, or to Margaret when she brought groceries.
Nelly still glared as she passed the house, her dislike for Prue no less because she was expecting a child, but she was stopped one morning by loud knocking on the window and, going to investigate, found Prue in the kitchen, sitting on a chair and seemingly unable to move.
‘I’ve tried to ring Amy,’ she gasped, ‘but there was no reply either at home or the shop.’
‘On her way, I expect. ’Ere, I’ll ring the doctor. Amy would do that seein’ you like this anyway, then I’ll go over the shop. She’s bound to be there by then.’
Nelly’s hands shook as she dialled the Doctor’s number and when it connected, she shouted into the ’phone, ‘Come an’ see Mrs Beynon, an’ don’t be too long about it. She’s in trouble.’ She answered a few questions, mostly with ‘Gawd knows’, before putting the ’phone down then dialling the shop. This time Amy answered and said she would come at once.
The shop was not yet open and Amy ran up the inside stairs and knocked on the sealed door.
‘Mavis, can you come for a while? It’s an emergency. My sister is ill.’ After a moment’s delay, Mavis came down and Amy ran down the road to Prue.
The doctor arrived just as she reached the door and they went in together. The doctor gave a brief examination and rang for an ambulance. Nelly and Amy waited quietly, Nelly offering a silent prayer, and an apology for all the nasty things she had said about the woman.
‘You go with ’er an’ stay as long as you want,’ she told Amy. ‘I’ll see to your Margaret, don’t worry.’
Amy looked white and scared. Prue was rambling deliriously, her skin grey and moist. Nelly thought Amy looked only a little better than the sick woman, her blue eyes shadowed with worry.
‘I’ll meet Margaret from school an’ she can stay with me or with Evie an’ Tim if she’d rather, ’til you gets back.’
‘Thanks, Nelly.’
Amy was trembling now. Prue looked so deathly ill and old. She was like a stranger, her thin face distorted with pain and the pale blue eyes staring and wild. ‘I’m afraid she’ll never get over this,’ Amy whispered.
‘Don’t think that,’ the doctor comforted. ‘Once the baby arrives, things usually settle down very quickly.’
‘But you don’t understand. She didn’t want it, not at her age. It won’t be that easy, not for Prue.’
Amy was proved right. The baby was born that day, a tiny scrap of a girl hardly bigger than one of Margaret’s dolls. Almost six weeks premature, it seemed impossible for her to survive. But as the weeks passed, the doll grew and became a beautiful, fair-haired baby. She had a small mouth and surprisingly full cheeks with a nose pert and tiny in the perfect face. Amy adored her.
On a hospital visit a few weeks later, Amy was approached by a nurse and told the doctor wanted to see her. She was taken along corridors and into a large ward with rows of beds, whose occupants followed her progress with mild curiosity. Near Prue’s bed, in which she still spent a lot of her day, the doctor waited.
‘Nothing wrong with the baby, is there?’ Amy asked at once.
‘The baby’s fine. In fact, I think she’s strong enough to go home in a week or so. That is, she would be able to, but…’ he nodded his head to where Prue was lying, dozing, her thin face sagging at the mouth and looking less like Prue than ever. ‘I’m afraid your sister is far from well. In fact, with your permission, I would like to transfer her to a different hospital, just for a while, to see if a different kind of treatment would help her.’
‘A mental hospital?’ The words that had been hiding away at the back of Amy’s mind came out like a cry.
The doctor nodded. ‘We think it’s best. With luck she will respond quickly to treatment and soon be home. But in the meantime, is it possible that you could care for little Sian?’
‘Of course.’
A million fears filled her mind as she made her way home. How could she possibly run a house, a shop, and look after Margaret properly as well as care for this tiny infant? She didn’t know how. She only knew she would.
When she stepped off the bus outside ‘Heulog’, Nelly and George were walking past, the big dogs straining on their leads: leather ones now, a present from George.
‘I’m going to have an addition to my family,’ she said in greeting.
‘Not Prue? Coming home is she?’
‘I’m afraid not. She’s still very ill. I’ve been asked to have little Sian.’ She smiled, ‘I don’t know how I’ll manage, with the shop and all, but I couldn’t refuse. I couldn’t see Prue’s baby going to strangers, could I?’
‘When is she comin’? I’m lookin’ forward to seen’ ’er. Pretty is she? Or like your Prue, Gawd ’elp ’er,’ she couldn’t resist adding.
‘She’s lovely, and if she reminds me of anyone, it’s of Freddy when he was a baby. Fair, blue-eyed and so tiny.’
‘Seems the gypsies were right about you having a baby to care for,’ George said. ‘Nelly told me of their predictions.’
‘Typical of my life!’ Amy laughed. ‘Another baby and still no husband! That part of her fortune-telling hasn’t come true!’
‘Not yet,’ Nelly said, and she gestured to where a tractor was puffing along the road driven by Billie Brown, who was waving enthusiastically.
‘Not yet.’
First published in the United Kingdom in 1990 by Headline Book
Publishing
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
57 Shepherds Lane
Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright © 1990 by Grace Thompson
The moral right of Grace Thompson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781911420187
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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