by Daisy Styles
Excited as she was about the possibility of a new arrival, she wondered how long she would be able to hold down her job teaching infant children at the local school in Battersea. There was no question that she loved her job, especially now that Robin had just started in the reception class right next door to her own classroom. But with a new baby in the house, surely she would have to give up work to take care of her growing family. Stan had advised her not to dwell too much on what she would or would not have to do.
‘With war imminent there’ll soon be changes beyond our control,’ he said whenever Gloria started to worry about the future.
Staring thoughtfully at the bubbles forming in the pan of water she’d put on to boil, Gloria wished that Stan wasn’t quite so insistent about war breaking out. Like most people, she wanted peace, after the horrors of the last war, in which so many millions of men were slain (including her own beloved father). Gloria approved of the prime minister’s appeasement tactics with Hitler, but recent aggression by the Nazis in Czechoslovakia had caused concern. It seemed increasingly obvious that duplicitous Hitler said one thing and then, as soon as Chamberlain’s back was turned, he did exactly the opposite. She knew for sure that her fiercely patriotic husband would be the first to sign up; she’d only to see his expression every time he read an article in the paper or heard a radio announcement about the latest atrocities to know how much he detested the man.
‘That fella needs teaching a lesson,’ Stan would mutter darkly. ‘A short, sharp shock to put the cocky little upstart in his damned place.’
For all her attempts to turn the conversation away from ‘taking on the Hun’, Gloria found that Stan remained steadfastly determined that he would not abandon his country when the call came. The thought of her husband marching off to fight the enemy made Gloria almost sick with fear; all she wanted was to keep her happy little family safe and to bring her children up in a country that was at peace. When she heard the familiar sound of the key turning in the front door, her face lit up; quickly wiping her hands on her pinafore, she smiled at her tall, broad-shouldered husband framed in the kitchen doorway. Even now, after seven years of marriage, her heart still skipped a beat at the sight of his wide, generous smile and the mop of jet-black hair that fell carelessly across his dark blue eyes.
‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he murmured, and stooped to kiss her full on the mouth.
Gloria laid her head briefly against his strong chest, where the familiar smell of soap combined with engine oil assailed her senses.
‘Good day?’ she asked.
‘Long and hard – London’s getting too busy,’ he joked, as he hung up his coat and washed his hands under the scullery tap. ‘Mmm, supper smells good,’ he said appreciatively, as Gloria laid the hot meat pie on the table alongside a bowl of vegetables dotted with melting butter. ‘How lucky am I?’ he joked. ‘To have a beautiful, clever wife who can cook like an angel after a hard day teaching little ’uns reading, writing and arithmetic!’
Gloria smiled as she set down two glasses of cold water by their dinner plates; she knew how proud her husband was of her academic achievements. At the same age as Robin was now she and Stan had started school together; she’d always been the brightest student in the class, while he was just an average learner with an overriding interest in football and car engines. Their easy friendship had blossomed into love, and as teenagers they were inseparable. Stan had started working for London Transport as a bus driver as soon as he left secondary school at fourteen, while Gloria had remained on at school until she matriculated, after which she’d attended a nearby teacher-training college.
Everybody had said when they got engaged that beautiful, clever Gloria could do better for herself than marry a bus driver, but Gloria had never strayed from her first and only love, even though other men had regularly tried to court her. And when she qualified as a primary-school teacher she married her childhood sweetheart in the church at the end of the street where she’d grown up. Two years later Robin had been born, but it had taken another five years to conceive again; she and Stan couldn’t have been happier or more excited. The only thing that marred Gloria’s joy was the constant, worrying talk of a blasted war!
After supper they washed and dried the dishes in the back-scullery slop sink, then – as was their nightly habit – they settled down with a cup of tea in front of the coal fire to listen to the radio. Absorbed in following a complicated knitting pattern for a baby’s layette in a neutral cream colour, Gloria wondered dreamily whether the baby she was carrying would be a boy or a girl.
Her reverie was broken by Stan’s sombre words: ‘There’s been talk of women and children being evacuated,’ he said, as he lit up a Senior Service cigarette.
Gloria, who had heard the news too but had assiduously avoided mentioning it to her husband, had absolutely no intention of being evacuated. Come what may, she was staying in the city she loved, and in the house she and Stan had saved up and bought just after Robin was born. London was her home, and as far as Gloria was concerned neither Hitler nor Neville Chamberlain would move her out to the country to live in a community where she did not belong.
Stan broke into her rebellious thoughts. ‘You might have to consider it, sweetheart,’ he murmured.
Laying down her knitting, Gloria glared at him. ‘Why? War hasn’t even been declared and you’ve already joined the scaremongers! Packing women and children off to the middle of nowhere before a single bomb has fallen.’
Stan took a deep drag on his cigarette, which he slowly inhaled. ‘War’s coming, Gloria,’ he said. ‘For your safety and Robin’s, and the baby’s too, you cannot stay in London, which is sure to be one of Hitler’s prime targets.’
‘War might not come,’ she cried. ‘Chamberlain’s peace talks might have an effect on other governments; he might succeed,’ she frantically insisted.
Seeing the fear and anguish on his wife’s lovely face, Stan stubbed out his cigarette and laid a hand over hers. ‘Let’s hope you’re right, my darling … let’s hope you’re right.’
In another part of London, Archie Percival waited impatiently in his stylish Mayfair flat for the return of Marigold, his mistress, who had a long list of afternoon appointments but had faithfully promised she would be back in good time for their trip to the Palace Theatre to watch a production of Under Your Hat, a show that was taking the West End by storm. Archie was desperate to get his obliging mistress into bed before they left for the Palace Theatre: after too long in the country with his wife, who locked herself away in the west wing of the house and barely spoke to him, he was desperately in need of Marigold’s tender favours. Lovely, lovely Marigold, with her long, white, slender legs, her full breasts and slim hips, would take his mind off his mounting financial problems, albeit briefly.
With the arrival of Marigold bearing bulging bags from Harrods and Fortnum and Mason, Archie forced a smile on to his face; broke he may be, but how could he chide his lover, especially when she arrived bearing bottles of chilled Bollinger? After a satisfactory hour of love-making Sir Percival felt better than he had in weeks. As Marigold took a hot bath, watched by Archie drinking the last of the champagne, she began to speak in her plummy, pouting voice.
‘Darling, I hope you don’t mind but I’ve asked the Bennetts to the show – and to supper at the Savoy too.’
‘Oh …’ drawled Archie persuasively, as he smoothed soap on to Marigold’s perfectly flat stomach. ‘Oh, sweet, I was so hoping to have you all to myself tonight?’
‘Darling, this is a mercy call,’ Marigold chided, relieving him of his glass and polishing off the contents. ‘My dear friends the Bennetts are frightfully sad and demoralized.’
Wondering why he was expected to waste good money cheering up the Bennetts, Archie looked distinctly unsympathetic. ‘And what might have upset them?’ he scoffed. ‘A little drop on the stock market, perhaps?’
‘You are a beast!’ she giggled, as she flicked soap bubbles into his face. ‘Poor, poor Ci
cily has just been told by the most famous obstetrician in Harley Street that she and Edgar will never be able to have children.’
‘Well, then,’ Archie said flippantly. ‘They’ll just have to adopt.’
Marigold gave him an arch look. ‘Oh, of course, you’ll know all about that,’ she teased in a mock-shocked voice. ‘You being the governor of a home for fallen women,’ she finished melodramatically.
Rising like a perfect Venus, she waved her arms: the sign that she wanted a towel, which Archie tenderly wrapped around her shoulders, but not before kissing each of her soapy nipples.
‘Be a sweetie and help me cheer up poor Edgar,’ Marigold continued.
Percival waved a hand in the air. ‘I wouldn’t give a damn about being childless!’ he exclaimed.
‘Me neither,’ she agreed. ‘Something we have in common, my darling – we’re free spirits,’ she whispered seductively, as she snuggled up against Percival, who, hoping they could return to bed, groped clumsily for her breasts.
‘No, naughty boy,’ she said, tapping him lightly on the arm. ‘We mustn’t be late,’ she added, and finished drying herself before dropping the bath towel on the floor for the maid to pick up.
Sitting on the pink padded velvet stool by Marigold’s dressing table, Percival lit up a cigarette as he watched his mistress dress. Picking up where she’d left off, Marigold continued, ‘Tell poor heartbroken Edgar that adoption’s not as ghastly as it sounds. Heavens!’ she said with a roll of her big baby-blue eyes. ‘They’re as rich as Croesus – they could adopt an Indian prince if they were so inclined.’
No sooner were the words out of Marigold’s pretty little mouth than a light flashed on in Archie’s head and he recalled Matron’s words, which perhaps he’d been too quick to dismiss, desperate as he’d been to get rid of her that night.
What was it she’d said? ‘They might be bastards, but we could assure our clients that at least one line of their genealogy was respectable.’
His mind moved fast; Edgar Bennett was the eldest son of the wealthy Earl of Easterbrook and was indeed – as Marigold had put it – ‘as rich as Croesus’. The earldom would be passed on to Edgar when his father died, and Edgar would need a son to carry on the noble family line. That his wife was infertile would have been a body blow to Edgar, who was, in effect, an heir without an heir.
‘My sweet,’ he murmured, his mind going at a million miles an hour as he helped his mistress into an elegant silk dress, ‘I will, of course, do everything I can to cheer up Edgar.’
‘You’re so precious, Archie,’ she whispered as she leant forward to kiss his fleshy lips.
Percival smiled; he would unquestionably do everything in his power to help Cicily and Edgar, who might in return be able to help him too.
9. Windermere
It was a mystery to Isla how her independent, open-minded, socialist grandmother could have produced a daughter as feeble as her own mother.
‘How did it ever happen?’ she asked Jeannie, as they set off over the fells for Orrest Head, where they planned to have a picnic.
‘Oh, your mother is just like her father: weak and frightened of everything,’ Jeannie answered cheerfully.
‘I can’t imagine YOU with a weak man!’ Isla laughed.
‘Well, in truth, I wasn’t with him for long,’ Jeannie answered honestly. ‘We lasted long enough to produce a child, then he died after an attack of flu.’
Incredulous Isla shook her head. ‘Why did you marry him in the first place?’
As the land rose higher, Jeannie stopped to catch her breath. ‘Darling, he was VERY good-looking, and quite a catch – well, at least to start with – before he became dull and boring.’
Isla giggled. ‘You must have made the poor man’s life a misery.’
‘Oh, I did,’ Jeannie said with complete candour. ‘He was scared to death of me, but’ – she gave a brief sigh of regret – ‘it was a shame that your mother never knew him. She would have liked him so much more than she ever liked me.’
Offended on her darling grandmother’s behalf, Isla responded staunchly, ‘Silly woman!’
‘It’s the truth, dear: they would have had so much in common. Upright members of the establishment, both terrified of putting a foot wrong, they would have been a great comfort to one another,’ Jeannie said with a wry smile.
Isla marvelled that Jeannie could be so objective about her only child.
‘I tried SO hard to love Sylvia, and I do, of course – she is my daughter after all – but I don’t especially like her,’ Jeannie confessed as they strode on. ‘As she grew up, she became duller and duller with every passing year. It was almost a relief when she met your father. He was the father figure she never had. He snapped her up and promptly removed her far away from me,’ she said with a shrug. ‘I know he thought I was a terrible mother – in fairness to him, I probably was!’
As they gained height, Windermere, dotted with pleasure boats and sparkling blue in the spring sunshine, came into view.
‘The best thing they ever did was have you, darling child,’ Jeannie said fondly, shooting her granddaughter a warm smile. ‘Like me, they produced a child who was the very opposite of themselves; you are clever and passionate, not one of the herd, a girl with spirit and determination,’ she said proudly.
Tears brimmed in Isla’s lovely Highland pale blue eyes. She was so happy here in the Lake District with her beloved Jeannie, who had never judged or condemned her but had opened her door and welcomed her. Even after her grandchild had poured out the whole terrible, disastrous story of her love affair with an older married man, Jeannie had shown no disgust or voiced any disapproval; she had simply wrapped her arms around weeping Isla and held her close.
‘Men!’ she had scoffed. ‘We learn about them when it’s too late and then we have to live with the consequences.’
At the top of Orrest Head they found a flat rock to sit on and have their picnic. Now that Isla had got her appetite back and the terrible bouts of sickness had passed, she was unashamedly eating for two and had a much bigger tummy to show for it. After sharing out food from their rucksacks – cheese-and-pickle sandwiches, boiled eggs, tomatoes and fruit cake – plus hot sweet tea that they poured from Thermos flasks, they sat in companionable silence, taking in the view and watching the sunlight sweep across the lake and surrounding fells.
Having not talked about the future or made any plans, Jeannie chose this peaceful moment on top of the fell with puffy white clouds scudding overhead to open discussions about Isla’s child.
‘Now, what are we going to do about this baby of yours?’
While Isla had been in Windermere, she’d had time to consider her situation; without pressure or prejudice, she’d reached a decision.
‘I want to have it adopted,’ she said.
Jeannie poured more tea from her flask before looking up. ‘Sure?’
Isla nodded. ‘Yes, I know it’ll be hard, but he or she will stand a better chance of a more balanced life with a loving mother AND father,’ Isla added pointedly.
‘Well, my dear, I agree, if my opinion helps at all,’ Jeannie offered gently. ‘And I’m proud of you for making such a brave decision.’
Isla set down her Thermos cup and wrapped her arms around her grandmother. ‘YOU help, Jeannie, I love you so much,’ she blurted out. ‘I couldn’t have got through this without your strength and belief in me, even though I have all but ruined my life.’
‘Stuff and nonsense,’ Jeannie cried, as she brushed crumbs from her tartan skirt. ‘You’ll get through this, see your child safely adopted and continue with your studies, hopefully at any university other than blasted Durham. We don’t want that odious lecherous professor near you again.’
On their way down the fell, they discussed where Isla would give birth.
‘I think I should remove myself so I don’t embarrass you,’ she suggested.
‘I’m a bit of a social outcast, so I don’t think you should start worrying ab
out my reputation at this stage,’ Jeannie told her staunchly. ‘Though I do believe you should be in a hospital where you will be safely delivered of your baby by people who know what they’re doing and who also have experience in adoption.’
‘There!’ Isla exclaimed. ‘You’ve come up with an answer: what I need is a reliable mother and baby home, not too far away from you, dearest Jeannie,’ she added with a smile. ‘I couldn’t bear not to see you regularly while I wait for the baby to be born.’
Jeannie linked her arm through Isla’s. ‘Let’s do a bit of research when we get home and look at homes between here and Lancaster – that’s not too far away, is it?’
‘Lancaster’s fine,’ Isla replied. ‘But no further,’ she giggled.
Quickening her pace but still linking arms with Isla, Jeannie said cheerily, ‘Good, at last we have a plan.’
Not fifty miles away, in Crow Thorn Grange, Archie Percival was also thinking about adoption. The evening with Cicily and Edgar Bennett had unquestionably been eye-wateringly expensive, but, if things worked out, he comforted himself, he could offset the expense as an ‘investment’.
The play cheered them up mildly, but supper at the Savoy was far more uplifting: Archie positively let the wine flow throughout the night. He danced with Cicily, then left her to weep in Marigold’s arms, which gave him the perfect opportunity to have a man-to-man conversation with Edgar, who was clearly at his wits’ end.
‘You see, old man, I have to produce an heir – in fact, an heir and a spare would be the ticket,’ he blurted out as he and Archie sat opposite each other, drinking brandy. ‘What do I do? Leave the woman I love in favour of a younger, more fecund version? We’ve always been completely devoted to each other – it’s the worst blow possible,’ he gulped, downing a good half of the brandy in his glass.