by Maggie Ford
Amid a bevy of oohs and aahs, Helen straightened up in her seat next to Edwin. “When do Angel and Gina make their entrance?”
Edwin consulted the typewritten programme. “After this, with the older girls. They don’t do their own spot until just before the interval.”
“I’d have thought—” Helen began but stopped abruptly as someone behind them, no doubt a parent of one of the little ones, shushed her. Sitting back to endure the scenes that didn’t include her girls, she forced herself to concentrate on what was going on up there on the stage. She needed to concentrate to take away the bad images. Three months since losing Dad – that she had known him as Dad as far back as she could remember must count for something. The memory of that day when she had finally been able once again to call him by that name still brought tears.
If only she hadn’t been so ready to lay blame at his feet. If only she’d had enough generosity to realise how much her refusal to see him must have hurt. Her heart ached, thinking how he must have felt. She had been so wrapped up in selfishness that she had only seen her error at the very last moment. That their reconciliation had come moments before his end was little consolation to her. It was said that every death lays a burden of guilt on the bereaved to some degree, and her guilt in leaving it so long before telling him that she at last understood and accepted was something she’d carry with her forever.
This evening was no exception. To push it from her, Helen trained all her attention on the little dancers. Seeing one or two occasionally get out of step, she hoped her own girls would enjoy a faultless routine, and for a while forgot about guilt.
Angel and Gina were her life, her sole escape from those things she’d rather not recall. Their future was her all. They were so talented. Would they one day make a profession of that talent, maybe be like Hugh, looking for the limelight? At Hugh’s name, she cringed inwardly, forcing her mind back to the present.
The fairy dell scene had ended. The audience applauded and the chubby little ones bowed awkwardly and unevenly before running off stage to their tutor in the wings.
Older girls were taking the little ones’ places. The woodland scenery was hurriedly and visibly manoeuvred aside to accommodate a city scene; one of the curtains had proved hard to close, and the pair had been drawn back again to stay unclosed for the rest of the show.
“There they are!” Edwin pointed out and with all else swept from her mind Helen trained her eyes on them for the rest of that scene, willing them not to make any mistakes. Her reward was to glory in their perfect steps, their lithe movements, the rest of the dancers dimmed by comparison.
But it was their solo spot that enthralled her as they went through the routine put together by their tutor, Miss Sellers, to the lively song “It’s A Lovely Day Today”, singing it through the once before going into a tap routine then slowing with the music to more elegant ballet steps and finally reverting to lyrics once more.
As the applause rose, necessitating a curtain call, Helen grabbed Edwin’s arm in excitement. She felt his hand cover hers, the first time he’d properly responded to her touch since learning about her and Hugh, and an unexpected thrill of relief ran through her veins as she recalled that past wilderness.
These days he made a point of being home more often, yet he’d remained distant for all that. Sometimes she would catch him looking at her as though at a loss about what to say or do, but perhaps it had been her own ongoing moodiness that had kept him at a distance. So many times she had prayed for them to get back to the way they had once been, when the children were small. They’d been growing apart for years and maybe that was the way of married life, but this business with Hugh – she’d begun to wonder if that would ever go away. Edwin behaved kindly enough, as though he had put it behind him, but could he ever truly do that? Would it always be there at the back of his mind? Nothing she could do would mend that.
At the touch of his hand, she looked at him and, as the auditorium lights began to come on, saw that he was looking back at her and that his regard was tender.
Her pleasure at her daughter’s achievement faded, replaced by wonder that after all that had happened, he could still look at her with tenderness.
“Everything is going to be all right?” she whispered hopefully.
Edwin’s hand tightened on hers.
“Of course it is,” he whispered back. “For our girls’ sake, for all our sakes.” And to confirm it he bent and touched her lips lightly with his own in full view of the audience now moving off to enjoy the interval.
That was all it needed. She must put it all behind her – Hugh, her stepfather, her real father – none of it must matter if she wanted to save this marriage. It was a good marriage, its only fault that perhaps she had expected too much of it. So now she would not expect heaven, just a little lightness and contentment. And there were always her girls to lighten her days when Edwin was working, their future to fill her with anticipation. And really she did love Edwin, always had, despite everything.
About the Author
Maggie Ford was born in the East End of London but at the age of six she moved to Essex, where she lived for the rest of her life. After the death of her first husband, when she was only 26, she went to work as a legal secretary until she remarried in 1968. She had a son and two daughters, all married; her second husband died in 1984. She wrote short stories from the early 1970s, also writing under the name Elizabeth Lord, and continued to publish books up to her death at the age of 92 in 2020.
Also by Maggie Ford
A Brighter Tomorrow
A Fall from Grace
A New Dream
The Lett Family Sagas
One of the Family
Affairs of the Heart
Echoes of the Past
First published in Great Britain in 2001 by Severn House Publishers LTD
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by Canelo
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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Copyright © Maggie Ford, 2001
The moral right of Maggie Ford to be identified as the creator 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 9781800324404
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.
Originally published as Winter Wine by Elizabeth Lord
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