The Clippie Girls

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘Possibly.’ Hester chewed her lip. ‘Will they really send him all the way back home if he’s out there?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably, because conditions can’t be very good . . .’

  Hester’s hands fluttered nervously and Rose realized she was only adding to the little woman’s worries.

  ‘He – he doesn’t mention me at all,’ she murmured sadly, changing the subject.

  ‘No, love, but then he’s not referred to Peggy either.’

  ‘True, but—. Oh, I don’t know what to think.’

  ‘Let’s get him back home first and then you can talk it through with him.’ Hester regarded the girl, her head tilted to one side. ‘You still love him then, I take it?’

  Rose pursed her lips to stop the tears starting, but they filled her eyes anyway. ‘Oh yes,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve never stopped and I don’t suppose I ever will now. I mean, if I can go on loving him when he was going out with my sister and then – then when he asked her to marry him, I don’t think – ’ she laughed bitterly – ‘I’ve got much hope of getting over him, do you?’

  ‘Well, I’m glad. I just hope he comes to his senses and sees what a lovely girl you are. I’m sorry to say it, love, ’cos she’s your sister, but he’s better off without her. And as for marrying her and taking on another man’s child, well, I wouldn’t have liked that, knowing it wasn’t my flesh and blood.’

  Rose thought about her own family. She was now the only one refusing to have anything to do with the child, except, strangely, the child’s own mother. Peggy was still turning her face away from little Freddie and she only submitted to him sucking noisily at her breast because Sarah Catchpole was stern with her.

  Rose ran her tongue round her dry lips. ‘She – she’s had the baby.’

  ‘Has she? Is it – are they both all right?’ Hester was not so cold-hearted that she’d wish any harm to either of them.

  Rose nodded. ‘Except Peggy won’t have much to do with him.’

  ‘That sometimes happens. It’s a big thing to have a baby, you know, and I expect she feels it even more because . . .’ Hester stopped, embarrassed by what she’d been going to say.

  ‘You don’t have to consider my feelings, Mrs Deeton. I know very well how she feels. Because I won’t have anything to do with him either. I don’t even want to touch him. He’s the cause of all the trouble.’

  Hester regarded the moody-faced young woman for a moment before she said gently, ‘That’s where you’re wrong, Rose love. A boy, is it? Well, it’s not the little feller’s fault. He didn’t ask to be born, did he?’

  Rose frowned, but did not answer. What was it about the birth of a baby? Even if it’d been born on the wrong side of the blanket, as the saying went, folks seemed to go all dewy-eyed when the baby arrived.

  As she left, Hester said, ‘You can come with me when I go to see Bob if you want to.’

  ‘No – no, not the first time. I’d like to see him, of course I would and I will, but you go on your own first time and see how things are. You – you can tell him I send my love and see what he says.’

  Hester nodded. ‘All right then, if you’re sure.’

  Rose wasn’t – she wanted to fly to his side wherever he was – but she forced herself to nod and say, ‘It’d be for the best.’

  Reaching home, she opened the front door to a wall of noise. The baby was screaming, yet at first Rose couldn’t tell where the noise was coming from. Then she realized with surprise the sound was coming from the living room. Was Peggy up then? She opened the door to see Grace sitting in her usual place, but on her lap was the baby kicking and screaming until he was red in the face. He was surprisingly strong and vigorous for only two weeks old. Grace was on her own; Mary was at work and Myrtle at school. Of Peggy – who should have been here – there was no sign.

  ‘Oh, Rose!’ Grace looked up with relief. ‘Give us a hand, will you?’ she said, raising her voice above the noise. ‘The midwife brought a bottle and all the paraphernalia round. Peggy’s not producing enough milk to keep the little chap satisfied. He’s a big baby, so Nurse said we must supplement him with a bottle. I’ve mixed it just like she showed me and tested it for heat, but he just screws up his face and won’t even try.’

  ‘Where’s Peggy?’

  ‘Upstairs. He’s been crying all morning and she just leaves him lying in his cradle. She’s not natural, that girl. Here, you have a go.’ Grace held out the bottle inviting Rose to try to pacify him.

  ‘Me?’ Rose was scandalized. ‘Oh, no, Gran. I don’t want anything to do with him.’

  ‘Rose, you’re going to have to help me. I can’t manage him. He won’t take the bottle and the poor little mite’s starving.’

  ‘Then get Peggy to look after him. He’s her child.’

  ‘She won’t,’ Grace said flatly. ‘It’s the baby blues or whatever they call it these days. It’ll go eventually, but in the meantime this little chap needs looking after.’

  Rose clicked her tongue with exasperation, annoyed because neither Mary nor Myrtle was here. They loved to nurse Freddie, tickling him gently and talking to him.

  ‘He smiled at me,’ Myrtle would say triumphantly.

  ‘Wind,’ Grace would mutter.

  ‘No, no, he smiled at me, Gran. I know he did.’

  ‘Oh, give him here,’ Rose said impatiently now.

  She held the baby in her left arm, rocking him gently, and reached to take the bottle from Grace. Suddenly the noise stopped, before she had even offered him the bottle. Surprised, Rose glanced down at him and found herself looking into the biggest, darkest pair of blue eyes she could ever remember seeing. He was gazing up at her and even though the tears were still flooding from his eyes, Rose could have sworn a smile flickered on his tiny mouth.

  ‘Thank goodness for that,’ Grace muttered. ‘Get him fed, for heaven’s sake.’

  Rose sat down and gently touched the teat of the bottle to the baby’s lips. He opened his mouth and began to suck greedily at once.

  ‘Goodness, he’s really hungry,’ Rose murmured.

  ‘That’s what all the noise was about. I’ll say that for him, he only cries when something’s wrong. He’s not a whingeing baby.’

  ‘Aren’t his eyes a deep blue?’

  Grace sniffed. ‘Babies’ eyes are usually blue when they’re born, but they change. Terry had black hair and brown eyes, didn’t he?’ She nodded towards Freddie. ‘He’ll take after him, I expect.’

  Rose snorted. ‘He needn’t bother. The less reminders we have of him, the better.’

  The baby guzzled away happily, his tiny fingers curling round Rose’s hand that held the bottle. The warm, feather-light touch was like an electric shock. Unbidden, an overwhelming love for this tiny mite flooded through Rose. Hester Deeton was right; it wasn’t Freddie’s fault he’d been born. He was so little, so helpless, and his life depended on all of them.

  ‘Oh, Gran . . .’ Tears blinded Rose’s eyes as she gazed down at him lying in the crook of her arm. She blinked rapidly. ‘Look at his chubby little legs and his tiny fingers. He’s lovely, isn’t he?’

  Grace regarded her granddaughter thoughtfully, witnessing the change taking place in Rose’s heart. In her long life Grace had rarely been moved to tears. She was a hard-working, determined Yorkshire woman, who’d known deep sadness and tribulation as well as times of great happiness, but she’d never been the weepy sort. Yet at this moment as she watched Rose fall in love with her nephew – and yes, there could be no other explanation for it – Grace felt a lump in her throat and tears prickle her eyelids. In a few minutes, holding him in her arms and ministering to him, Rose had become besotted with the little chap and his willing slave. Grace cleared her throat and said gruffly, ‘You need to wind him.’

  ‘Oh. How do I do that?’

  For the next half an hour, Rose fed, winded and changed Freddie’s nappy under Grace’s instruction. And when Mary and Myrtle arrived home, they stood open-mouthed in the doorw
ay of the living room as they saw Rose walking around the table, singing softly and rocking the baby to sleep.

  Thirty-Six

  ‘Wonders will never cease,’ Mary remarked to Grace later that night when they were alone in the living room, the last to go to bed. ‘Whatever brought that on?’

  Grace chuckled. ‘I – er – made out I couldn’t manage him.’ Mary stared at her mother in disbelief as Grace went on. ‘He was screaming blue murder when Rose walked in. I was just about to feed him, but I pretended I couldn’t get him to take the bottle. I told Rose she’d have to help me. She resisted a bit at first, but when she took him in her arms and fed him – oh, Mary, I wish you could have seen it. It was just like you say – a wonder. A miracle.’

  Mary gaped. She’d never heard her mother wax lyrical and become so sentimental. It was indeed amazing what the arrival of this tiny baby had done to them all. All of them, that is, except the one who really mattered. The baby’s own mother. She said as much now with a sigh. ‘If only Peggy would feel the same, but she flatly refuses even to look at him properly.’

  Grace was still shaking her head over Rose. ‘I could hardly believe what I was seeing and then – ’ she laughed again – ‘did you see poor Myrtle’s face when she saw little Freddie in Rose’s arms? If ever I saw jealousy written on someone’s face, it was on Myrtle’s.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Mary said worriedly. ‘Everyone’s falling for him except his mother.’

  Grace shrugged. ‘She’ll come round and, in the meantime, there’s plenty of us now.’

  Indeed there were and it almost came to fisticuffs when they were all at home and time for Freddie’s feed came around.

  ‘It’s my turn. You did it at breakfast,’ Myrtle said, ‘and I wasn’t here at lunchtime. When I get home from school’s the only time I have.’

  ‘But it’s my day off. I don’t get much chance at all with all the different shifts I have to do,’ Rose countered.

  ‘Now, now,’ Mary remonstrated gently, knowing she’d have to forgo her own turn. Never mind, she thought, I’m the one who has to get up in the night to him. But it was no hardship to her, not even when she was on the early shift. She loved the quiet hours in the middle of the night when she had the baby all to herself. Peggy could not be persuaded to take her turn even then. She was feeding him less and less and her milk was drying up. The bottle was now in greater use than ever, much to Nurse Catchpole’s disgust.

  ‘And don’t forget.’ Myrtle was playing her trump card. ‘I brought him into the world. I was the one who got him breathing.’

  ‘Oh please, Myrtle? Just this once. I must get to bed soon. I’m on earlies. You can do his last feed.’

  ‘But he doesn’t wake up until eleven sometimes and Mam makes me go to bed before then.’ She gazed at the baby. ‘Oh, all right then,’ she agreed sulkily, ‘but it’s my turn tomorrow night, no matter what.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Rose said happily and went into the scullery to mix the baby’s bottle. With a sigh, Myrtle opened her books and tried to concentrate on her homework instead of watching Rose feeding Freddie. But when Grace put the wireless on for the six o’clock news, she gave up and sat gazing at the baby and listening with only half an ear to the bulletin.

  As the news ended and Grace switched off the set, the door opened and Peggy stood there. It was the first time in months that she had ventured into the living room. Her glance flickered round the room and came to rest at last on her grandmother, who slowly lifted her head and met Peggy’s gaze. There was an unspoken question hanging in the air. It seemed as if everyone was holding their breath, waiting to hear what Grace – the undisputed head of the household – would say.

  Grace turned her head away, picked up her newspaper and opened it as she said casually, ‘Come and sit down, Peggy.’ It was the first time Grace had spoken directly to her granddaughter since she’d heard of the girl’s pregnancy. And now she added, ‘It’s high time you stopped playing the drama queen and concerned yourself with the welfare of your baby. Now, Rose, hand him over. Let Peggy finish giving him his feed and then she can change him.’

  ‘Oh, but—’ Rose began, but catching her grandmother’s stern glance, she handed Freddie into his mother’s arms and held out the bottle. Feeling himself in strange and – it had to be said – unwilling arms, Freddie began to whimper.

  ‘Cuddle him, Peggy,’ Rose instructed. ‘And talk to him. He likes to be talked to.’

  Peggy looked up and the two sisters gazed at each other. It had been a long time since there had been any form of communication between them too. Rose knelt down and guided Peggy with the feeding of the baby. Mary watched. Holding her breath and praying that perhaps now was the turning point. Grace, pretending to read her paper, was also watching. Only Myrtle frowned with ill-concealed jealousy.

  Rose’s conversion was complete, so much so that she couldn’t help enthusing about the baby to anyone who had the patience to listen. She didn’t even hide the fact any longer that her sister had had an illegitimate baby.

  ‘Oh, Alice, you should see him. He’s beautiful,’ she told her friend as they sat together during a lunchtime break. ‘And he’s growing so fast. The tiny little clothes that Peggy knitted for him before he was born are already too small for him. I can’t believe he’ll be a month old the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘I’d love to see him,’ Alice said softly. ‘I’ll come round some time if your sister wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Peggy? She won’t care one way or the other. She hardly takes any notice of him, except when we make her feed him.’

  Alice gasped. ‘What? What d’you mean?’

  Rose sighed and confided, ‘Well, I have to admit that before he was born none of us wanted him. We all felt the shame of Peg getting herself into trouble.’ Rose’s face twisted with regret. ‘I was the worst. I wouldn’t speak to her – wouldn’t even lift a finger to help when she went into labour. Oh, Alice, I feel so ashamed about how I acted.’

  ‘So you should be,’ Alice said, with startling alacrity. ‘Poor little mite – it wasn’t his fault.’

  ‘No, I know,’ Rose agreed. ‘And we’re all trying to make up for it now.’

  ‘If she doesn’t want him,’ Alice said, tears filling her eyes, ‘then she should let him go to someone who will love him as he deserves. She should let him be adopted.’

  Rose stared at her, aghast at the suggestion. ‘Oh no – no, we’d never let that happen. Oh no, he’s ours. We all love him to bits.’

  ‘Except,’ Alice said quietly, ‘the one person who should love him the most.’

  Rose couldn’t wait to visit Mrs Deeton when she heard that Bob was back in England and that his mother had visited him in a southern hospital.

  ‘Come in, dear.’ Today Hester was smiling, the worried frown cleared, albeit temporarily, from the woman’s face.

  ‘How is he?’ Rose couldn’t hold back the question any longer. ‘How badly is he hurt?’

  Hester laughed, but she understood the girl’s anxiety. Hadn’t she gone through agonies of uncertainty over the last few days until she had been able to see her son for herself?

  ‘He’s fine.’

  ‘Really?’ Rose couldn’t really believe that any soldier who’d been wounded on active service could be ‘fine’. But one thing she was certain of – Hester would not minimize her son’s condition.

  ‘He is wounded in the leg, like I told you, and it’s going to take some time to heal. That’s why they’ve brought him home – back to England, I mean.’

  ‘Where was he? Did you find out?’

  ‘The Western Desert – just like you guessed. Bob says we’re a couple of dimwits. We should have known he was abroad by the address he gave us to write to. He couldn’t tell us in so many words, but he tried to give us clues.’

  Rose chuckled. ‘Blackpool beach!’ She paused and then asked, ‘Will they bring him nearer home? Where is he now? Can I go and see him?’

  For a moment, Hester’s face cloud
ed and she avoided meeting Rose’s gaze. ‘I – don’t know. They – they only let close relatives visit at the moment.’

  Fear gripped her as Rose stared at the woman. ‘Are you telling me the truth?’ she asked, her anxiety making her blunt.

  Hester was affronted. ‘Of course I am. Rose, you have to understand. These hospitals are so busy. They can’t allow all and sundry to visit the patients.’

  ‘So – that’s what I am, is it? All and sundry?’

  ‘Oh dear, I didn’t mean it to sound like that. Rose, dear, please try to understand. And to answer your earlier question, Bob is hoping to be moved back here. To Sheffield.’

  ‘So I could see him then?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  Rose was mollified a little, but there was still a note of doubt in Hester’s voice. There was something she was holding back, Rose was sure of it.

  ‘Did you give him my message?’

  Hester nodded, but again she wouldn’t meet Rose’s gaze.

  ‘And?’

  Hester sighed. ‘Oh Rose, I’m sorry, it was Peggy he wanted to know about.’

  Rose’s heart sank. How could there be any chance for her, when Bob was still hankering after her sister?

  ‘You told him about the baby?’ Rose asked flatly.

  Hester bit her lip, but was forced to nod.

  ‘And?’ Rose said yet again.

  Tears filled Hester’s eyes as at last she made herself meet Rose’s gaze. ‘He – he asked me to go and see her and to – to tell her he’s still willing to marry her.’

  As she stared at the mother of the man she loved so very much, Rose felt as if her heart was breaking into tiny pieces.

  Thirty-Seven

  ‘You see,’ Hester went on hesitantly, realizing how much she was hurting this lovely girl, who had now sunk down into an armchair near the fire. Despite the warmth of the kitchen, Rose was shivering. She’d turned white. ‘He thought Peggy might have changed her mind – now the child has been born and she’s facing life as – as an unmarried mother. There must be such a lot of gossip amongst your neighbours.’