A New Dream

by Maggie Ford

  ‘I don’t want us to expand. I’d prefer us to be content as we are.’

  But discontent was beginning to creep into her life. It began in earnest in the spring of 1927 when Stephanie came to see her, hanging on the arm of a well-dressed young man. Proudly she introduced him to her sister.

  ‘This is Edward John Tillington, Julia. Eddie. We’ve been seeing each other for nearly a year.’

  She’s kept that quiet, thought Julia as she shook the young man’s hand, noting his firm grip and candid expression. Looking towards Stephanie as Simon took his turn to greet him, she caught sight of the flash of diamonds on her sister’s engagement finger.

  ‘Yes, we’re engaged,’ Stephanie blurted excitedly, noting the direction of Julia’s gaze.

  ‘Does Mummy know?’ Julia asked quietly.

  ‘No, not yet, but does it matter? We see so little of each other now, me with my flat and she in hers. But I will tell her. Eddie and I will be getting married this July and…’

  ‘But it’s already the middle of May,’ Julia cut in, taken by surprise by the announcement. ‘It’s a bit sudden, isn’t it? Why so quick?’

  She saw a vague clouding of her sister’s previously excited expression and guessed, with mounting dismay, at the reason for the haste. At the same time she tried to tell herself she could be wrong, was unnecessarily jumping to conclusions.

  Stephanie was obviously put out by her question, protesting that after nearly a year together it wasn’t a sudden decision, it was just that they hadn’t announced it earlier.

  Unconvinced, and unable to forget the look on Stephanie’s face, Julia could only hope that she had misconstrued what she thought she had seen.

  A few days later Stephanie popped into the fitting room of Julia’s boutique. It was mid morning and a most inconvenient time for a social visit, but Stephanie insisted on taking her aside and asking if they could have a chat upstairs in Julia’s apartment.

  ‘Well, I am a bit busy right now, Stephanie,’ she told her, but there was something about the girl’s eyes that arrested her attention. ‘Look,’ she said quickly, before turning back to her customer, ‘go on up and I’ll come as soon as I can. Give me half an hour. Make yourself a cup of tea.’

  Stephanie’s demeanour had been that of someone with a need to confess and it took a huge effort of will for Julia to give her attention to her woman customer’s needs. Finally, the woman departed, satisfied and she hastened up to her flat.

  ‘I couldn’t help seeing the way you looked at me the other day, Julia, when I told you about our plans,’ Stephanie began as soon as she came into the room. ‘I knew what you were thinking.’

  ‘Then am I right?’ Julia asked bluntly, and was immediately dismayed by Stephanie’s nod and deep blush. Seconds later though Stephanie had become chirpy and confident again, clutching both Julia’s hands with hers.

  ‘It’s all right, Julia. Eddie is quite happy about it. The baby’s not due until around December and by that time we’ll be so well married no one will think of counting up, and if they do we’ll just say it was premature. And no one will suspect at the wedding because I shall be hardly four months gone and not showing all that much. It’s just that I had to come here and explain because you looked so surprised and worried.’

  She seemed so self-assured, so happy, and left obviously feeling that all was well with her world. But Julia couldn’t help fearing history could easily repeat itself. Eddie seemed a likeable, upright and honest young man, not at all badly off for money, and from quite a good family. But then so, apparently, had been the other one.

  She continued to feel uneasy until the happy couple finally stood at the altar in all their splendour. The bride’s mother, still unaware of her daughter’s condition, had given her tearful blessing. Neither of the families seemed concerned at the haste of the wedding preparations and in truth Stephanie looked as sylphlike as ever as she and Eddie stood together at the altar. If, in the months to come, people started to notice her growing pregnancy and put two and two together, Julia felt she couldn’t care less.

  Yet she experienced a deep feeling of envy as the two went through their marriage vows. It should have been her and Simon standing there at the altar; the guests half filling the church should have been their guests. Simon should have been standing beside her as her husband-to-be, not giving her sister away in the absence of a father.

  The feeling grew as she listened to the vicar’s intonations; Stephanie’s quiet responses, Edward’s firm and confident; the church filling with sound as the congregation rejoiced for the couple; the organ playing quietly while the couple retired to the vestry to sign the register; then swelling again to the echoing, resounding strains of Mendelssohn’s Bridal March as the congregation filed slowly out behind the newly-weds for the photographs.

  Edward had bought his wife a lovely house in north London, not far from his parents. As the months went by and Stephanie started to show in earnest, Julia’s envy grew stronger, as did a strange sense of longing; a slow realization that what she was feeling was broodiness. She had experienced this at other times in the past – an oddly miserable, empty feeling – but never as strongly as now. Somehow business had always seemed to get in the way before the feeling really took hold of her.

  By the time autumn arrived Stephanie’s pregnancy was becoming noticeable. She was so happy and proud, clinging to her husband’s arm, and he in turn was so utterly besotted with her, that Julia’s feelings of envy and longing grew in strength.

  But she and Simon were not married. Few people were aware of this – she wore rings on many of her fingers, and the ring finger of her left hand bore a slim gold band with a single diamond that could have been a wedding ring. But whether others thought them married or not, a baby was a different matter, needing a father’s name if it were not to be destined to carry the stigma of illegitimate birth for the rest of its life.

  No. Babies were not on their list. Work and business were on their list. Simon was still full of ideas for expanding; she was still very much against expansion. These days Julia was unable to rid herself of strange premonitions of unexpected collapse and of pride often going before a fall. There was no longer any talk of marriage between them.

  Twenty-One

  It was Christmas Eve, Saturday. Julia and Simon had driven through almost blizzard conditions to Brownswood Park in North London to spend the next few days with Stephanie and her husband. Stephanie was now near her time.

  After much persuasion she’d managed to get her mother to come with them, though Victoria’s fear of car travel caused her to draw in sharp gasps of breath whenever another vehicle materialized out of the whiteness from the opposite direction. Although told that a Rolls Phantom was the safest thing on the road, she refused to believe it until Julia felt her nerves in danger of being worn ragged.

  It was important that her mother should be with them. Stephanie was unable to travel now that the birth was so close, James was spending Christmas with his fiancée and her family, and Ginny, not caring to spend a lonely, miserable Christmas keeping her mother company, had asked if she could come along with Julia to Stephanie’s.

  ‘I’ll be all right here alone,’ Victoria had said, her voice trembling. ‘But you can’t stay here on your own,’ Julia had insisted, but her mother had at first been adamant.

  ‘I’m getting used to being on my own,’ she had bleated plaintively. ‘If Virginia finds it a chore to stay and keep her mother company, let her go with you. I might just as well stay here by myself. After all, these days any Christmas to me is just another day without your father. It’ll soon be over.’

  ‘But we shall go down on the Saturday, stay Christmas and Boxing Day and travel home on the Tuesday. We can’t leave you here all that time alone. I need to be there in case Stephanie goes into labour. She could have the baby any minute.’

  ‘I can’t help that,’ was the comment, but Julia refused to give up. ‘She has a lovely home. You’ll be comfortable and th
ere’ll be lots of company for you. Edward’s parents will be there on Christmas Day and his sister and her boyfriend.’

  ‘I won’t be able to sleep in a strange bed. I don’t know his people.’ Julia had been near to losing her temper. ‘Then shall we all stay here, Mummy, and leave Stephanie to her own devices if the baby suddenly decides to arrive? It’s your grandchild, Mummy, your first grandchild. How can you not want to be there?’

  ‘I’m frightened of travelling in a car.’

  ‘Then you’re going to have to get used to it, Mummy!’ Julia blurted and would hear no more. So Victoria consented, allowing herself to be helped into the car as though she were an invalid, cringing in the back, yelping at every obstacle that appeared to her to be in their way while Ginny held on to her, murmuring words of comfort.

  It was no better once they arrived. Christmas greetings over, she stationed herself in a far corner of the room in a comfortable armchair, sinking into it until she all but disappeared. There she remained, speaking little to anyone, making them feel awkward until they finally ignored her. Later she allowed herself to be assisted to the meal table where she picked unenthusiastically at each sumptuous offering until Julia wanted to shake her, fully aware that she was playing up deliberately.

  Even so it was a good holiday and Stephanie managed not to interrupt it by going into labour. Julia would have loved to go back there for the New Year but decided it would be best to spend it with her mother. Stephanie had her husband’s family around her and so was in good hands. There was still no sign of the baby though.

  The following Wednesday, just four days into 1928, there came a telephone call ten minutes before nine in the morning as Julia was just about ready to go downstairs. It was from Stephanie.

  ‘Julia,’ a gasping voice sounded the moment Julia picked up the receiver. ‘Nothing is happening. I keep having awful, really awful pains but nothing is happening.’

  ‘Are you on your own?’ Julia asked. ‘Where’s Edward?’

  ‘He’s visiting a client. He’ll be home this evening.’

  ‘Have you telephoned the hospital?’ Edward’s house had a telephone that he used to contact his office as a public accountant.

  ‘I can’t move!’ come the cry. ‘It’s too painful when I move. Julia, I’m so frightened.’

  ‘I’m getting a train and coming straight over,’ Julia interrupted her.

  Having raced downstairs to tell Simon where she was going, then back upstairs to alert her mother, she hurried off, finally arriving to find that though the front door was locked the back door wasn’t. She found Stephanie huddled on the settee in a state of panic and pain.

  ‘It’s so overdue!’ Stephanie wailed, doubled over with the pain. ‘My doctor said it was due just before Christmas! Could it be dangerous?’

  ‘It’s only a week overdue if that’s the case,’ soothed Julia, but having no children of her own she had no idea if this was anything to worry about. She did, however, need to keep her sister calm with quiet and even words. ‘Have you still not notified the hospital?’

  Stephanie shook her head and moaned.

  ‘Haven’t you got in touch with Edward at all?’

  ‘I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘Well, his parents then?’

  But again Stephanie shook her head. ‘I was waiting for you.’

  ‘It’s taken me nearly an hour to get here. You mean that you’ve just been lying here, waiting for me, doing nothing, telling no one?’

  ‘I didn’t want to make too much of a fuss. I thought I’d wait until you came. Ooh…’

  As her words broke off in a trembling cry of pain, Julia rushed to the phone in the hall, yanking it off its hook, clicking the arm rapidly up and down until the exchange answered.

  ‘I need the maternity hospital,’ she yelled into the mouthpiece as the operator responded. ‘I don’t know the number or the name but I think this is an emergency. Can you put me through without having a number?’

  Within a minute or two she was connected. Asked the details she was told that an ambulance would be there in ten minutes or so. Returning to Stephanie she found her still curled up on the settee whimpering like a tiny child, her cheeks almost lobster red as she bore down in response to the baby’s need to come into the world.

  ‘I don’t know what to do!’ Her voice was tight and squeaky amid new bouts of pain. ‘It’s worse than ever it was the last time. Oh, it hurts…’

  Another breech, thought Julia, the memory of the last one sending her into a cold sweat of fear for her sister and for the baby. She needed to phone Edward’s mother, but there was no getting any sense out of Stephanie, curled up and gripped by pain.

  Between looking for a telephone number pad and trying to comfort her sister, she heard the ringing of an ambulance bell and offered up a prayer of thanks. Minutes later she was sitting inside it holding her sister’s hand, soon to feel the sway as the vehicle swung into the hospital forecourt. Stephanie was carried off to the maternity ward and Julia sat alone, waiting. She had no idea how to contact Edward or his parents, and her own mother still refused to have a telephone in her flat. Simon was the only person she could get in touch with.

  She phoned him, loving the reassuring sound of his light voice as he undertook to alert her mother and then try to contact Edward’s office. Someone there would know where he was. She hadn’t thought of that, in all the panic of dealing with Stephanie.

  She seemed to have been sitting tensely in the empty waiting room for hours, silently praying that Stephanie and the baby would be all right. The arrival of Edward was a blessed relief, but without even saying hullo he asked from the waiting room door, ‘Where is she?’ Then, noticing a nurse passing by the door, he made off after her, giving Julia no time to reply.

  She had half risen from her seat at his entrance but now sat down again. After a while a worried-looking young man, obviously a father-to-be, was ushered in by a nurse who was telling him that his wife was doing well. As she made to go, Julia leapt up from her chair.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, nurse, but is there any news yet of my sister? She came in about an hour ago. Her name’s Stephanie Tillington,’ she gabbled on. ‘Her husband is Edward Tillington. He went out to speak to a nurse a little while ago.’

  ‘I’ll find out for you,’ the woman said briskly, leaving the room, the door closing behind her. Julia forced a smile at the young man but he didn’t return the smile and she fell to waiting again, fighting the fears in her head.

  The nurse did return, sooner than Julia had expected, and beckoned her out to the corridor. There was no expression on her face that Julia could read and she immediately feared the worst as she followed her. It was then that Julia saw Edward coming towards them, walking quickly, his face twisted with anxiety.

  Before the nurse could speak he said, ‘They’ve taken her for an operation.’ There was fear in his tone. ‘They say it’s a breech birth. They say the baby isn’t strong enough to come out on its own. They’re going to operate to save it, maybe Stephanie as well.’

  Julia felt tears form in her eyes, her throat grown restricted. ‘Oh, Edward!’ she whispered, but the nurse took her arm.

  ‘She will be having a Caesarean section, there’s nothing to worry about. She will be fine,’ she said calmly.

  Edward didn’t seem at all comforted and as the nurse left them standing in the corridor he turned to Julia, his eyes full of reproach.

  ‘I had no idea Stephanie had lost a previous baby,’ he said quietly. ‘She never told me. I had to learn of it from the hospital!’

  * * *

  It was evening before Simon could get away. Julia greeted his arrival with a flood of tears. ‘Oh, Simon, what’s happened is terrible!’ she burst out, flinging herself into his arms. ‘I’ve been here for ages on my own. I didn’t know what to do. Edward left. I don’t know where he’s gone. Stephanie had a girl, but he doesn’t know. I just couldn’t explain to you on the phone what has happened.’

&n
bsp; Puzzled by her uncharacteristic outburst, telling her to calm herself, he listened while she composed her mind enough to inform him what had happened.

  ‘Edward knows about Stephanie’s other affair. He learned from the doctor that she’d had a previous baby. He didn’t know. Now he’s gone off goodness knows where.’

  She clenched her fists and shook them in anger. ‘How could she not have told him? The stupid, stupid girl! The poor man had to learn it this way from someone else! And he was in such fear for her, having to go through a Caesarean operation!’

  ‘And how are they?’ Simon queried.

  ‘The baby seems to be fine.’

  ‘And Stephanie?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s still sleeping off the anaesthetic.’ Julia bit at her lower lip, uncertain what would happen now. ‘I wish we could find Edward, explain to him. What if he can’t forgive her?’ She grew agitated again. ‘What’s going to happen to their marriage? She was so happy.’

  Simon sighed and held her to him to stop her frantic outpouring. ‘First we’ll see if we can find him. He may have gone to his parents’ house.’

  ‘But I don’t know where they live.’

  ‘We’ll telephone his office. They’ll know.’

  Julia clung to him, wondering what she would do if ever she lost him. Such a thing was unthinkable but nevertheless, seeing Stephanie’s plight, she couldn’t help wondering all the same.

  * * *

  Julia sat with the baby in her arms. Instinctively rocking back and forth as if she were the child’s mother she let her mind wander over these past six weeks since the baby’s birth, musing upon how a chain of circumstances could alter lives and send them along a totally different route, changing them completely.

  Had her father not died, had their lives continued along the lines he had set, Stephanie would have been a different person from the one she now was. She would never have worked for a living behind a department store counter, spending her evenings dancing, looking for young men, looking for a good time. She would certainly not have got involved with a rogue who had got her in the family way, leaving as soon as he discovered her condition. She wouldn’t be in this mess now.