by Daisy Styles
Clutching each other, they savoured the moment before Robin, with his characteristic joie de vivre, spoke again. ‘Come and see Big Ears?’
Stan burst out laughing. ‘I’m assuming that’s not Mummy!’ he joked.
‘No, silly! Mummy’s asleep with the baby; Big Ears is my donkey.’
‘I think I really need to see Mummy first, and then your sister,’ Stan said softly. ‘Will you show me the way, son?’
Robin very self-importantly marched his father upstairs to the bedroom he shared with his mother and baby sister, and, pressing a finger to his lips, he softly opened the door and pointed to the bed on which Gloria had dozed off with her baby in her arms. Holding his breath, Stan crept forward and gazed in wonder at his beautiful wife and daughter sleeping peacefully side by side. With her long, dark hair lying in a cloud about her face, Gloria looked tired but more lovely than Stan had ever seen her before. Unable to stop himself, he bent down and softly kissed her full, pouting lips. Gloria opened her eyes and blinked, and, gazing into her husband’s rugged, unshaven face, she really thought she was dreaming until Robin spoke up. ‘Mummy, Daddy’s come home!’
After holding on to her husband like she’d never let him go, Gloria presented him with his daughter, who, now wide awake, gazed at him with eyes as dark as his wife’s.
‘Hello, my darling girl,’ Stan said, fighting back tears that he thought might well engulf him. ‘I’m your daddy and I love you, very, very much, my sweetheart.’
‘She’s still not got a name,’ Robin bluntly announced. ‘Mummy won’t let me call her Pinky; she said you might have a name for her.’
Stan looked at Gloria, who couldn’t take her eyes off her husband, cradling his precious daughter. ‘Robin’s right: I thought you might like to name your little girl.’
‘Well, then,’ said Stan, and, still holding the baby close, he strolled towards the big bay window that gave views of the garden and the wild, windy marsh and the churning Irish Sea. ‘This has been a very special home for both of you; it’s kept you safe while I was away, so I think we should name our daughter after the place where you’ve both been happy.’ Turning to Gloria, he added, ‘Can we call her Mary?’
Gloria nodded. ‘I knew you’d come up with the perfect name,’ she said happily. ‘Mary.’ She savoured the sound of her daughter’s lovely new name. ‘Our own sweet, little Mary.’
Epilogue
In March of 1940, on the day that the Germans bombed Scarpa Flow, Sir Percival and Matron were sentenced to prison, while Dr Jones was struck off the medical register. Ada, Shirley, Gloria, Emily and Olive were called to give evidence at Lancaster Assizes. When the hideous truth was revealed – that Bertie had died in his sleep on Matron’s watch and that Tom had been falsely diagnosed with measles and declared dead – the courtroom was in profound shock. When they heard that the babies had been swapped, and that Bertie was, in fact, buried in Tom’s grave in the convent cemetery, heartbroken Daphne completely broke down and wailed like an animal in pain.
‘Oh, my God!’ she sobbed in Ada’s strong arms. ‘I left Mary Vale hoping my son was heading for a new and better life … such a sweet little life gone.’
The Bennetts were also called to give evidence. Nancy, terrified that they might not want her son any more, refused to meet them until they convinced her that they had no intention of abandoning their adored Rupert, who, Nancy told her friends in private, still looked the image of the spotty lad who’d seduced her! When the Bennetts were informed of the true facts – that they had been handed a substitute baby – they indignantly told the judge that, though Percival was a cad who’d wickedly deceived them, under no circumstances would they ever give up their adored son and heir. Nancy and the Bennetts parted on the most amicable of terms, and for years afterwards Nancy and her mother (living happily by themselves in a terraced house in Bolton) were sent a photograph of Rupert every Christmas, along with a Harrods food hamper and a generous cheque.
Putting the horrors of the past behind them a month later, on a warm April day with birdsong ringing out in every lane and leafy garden, three young and beautiful mothers wheeled their babies in big old Silver Cross prams borrowed from Mary Vale nursery along Grange’s wide and sunny promenade.
‘When I think of what I was planning this time last year,’ Isla laughed as she rearranged Heather on her bank of soft pillows. ‘Everything’s changed so much – I feel like another woman, an entirely different person.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Gloria laughed too. ‘Mary’s stolen my heart away – though I wouldn’t go as far as telling Robin that!’
Emily gazed adoringly at her son, who was now nearly three months old. ‘I can’t imagine life without Noel, and his astonishing grandparents. I talk to him every day about his daddy.’ With her characteristic strength of will and sheer determination, she continued, ‘I’ll keep George’s baby safe until God sends his daddy safely home to us.’
Sitting on a bench, with the sun on their faces, the three women gazed across the marsh, which was presently bright with spring flowers and loud with the sound of new-born lambs.
Gloria’s expression grew soft as she gazed out over the vast sweep of the bay. ‘I love this place,’ she said with a happy sigh. ‘You’ve no idea how I dragged my feet about leaving London,’ she smiled, as she recalled how stubborn she’d been when Stan had suggested that she and Robin left the city for a safer place. ‘Now I can’t imagine ever leaving here.’
‘If you did leave, you’d have to take Merry Paul with you or Robin would have a fit,’ Emily joked.
‘Seriously, though,’ Gloria continued, ‘I have a purpose at Mary Vale these days. Now that so many evacuees are arriving, my schoolroom is packed with noisy children every morning. Luckily, Shirley – or should I say Sister Shirley?’ she added with a big warm smile, ‘occasionally has time to help me.’
‘Sister Shirley in her sweet blue novice’s dress and white veil,’ Isla said fondly. ‘Who would believe she’s the same girl we rescued from the marsh?’
‘She looks a picture until she gets her bucket out and starts mopping round the toilets,’ Gloria chuckled. ‘She says it’s the best way of communing with God!’
Isla shook her head. ‘Shirley’s the same all the way through,’ she smiled. ‘Just like a stick of Morecambe rock!’
Later, in Mary Vale’s garden, the girls were joined by Ada, Sister Ann, grinning Sister Shirley, Father Ben (restored to favour), the Reverend Mother, Robin, Jeannie and Mary Paul, who’d miraculously put together a picnic to celebrate the happy occasion. Knowing how frugal Mary Paul was with their now daily rationed food, Ada smiled at the feast laid out before them: egg-and-cress sandwiches, cheese scones and jam-sponge slices.
‘My word, Merry Paul, you’ve done us proud!’
The nun blushed. ‘As it’s such a special occasion, I had a word with the Mary Vale farmer, who slipped me a few little extras,’ she answered self-consciously.
Cheeky Robin burst out laughing. ‘The farmer wants to marry Merry Paul!’
Pretending to scold the naughty boy, Sister Mary Paul flapped a tea towel in his face. ‘Get away with you, child!’ she giggled.
After the delicious picnic had been consumed and the late-afternoon sun slowly started to slide over the sparkling Irish Sea, where seagulls swooped and called, Isla asked, ‘Is it wrong to feel so contented?’
Sister Shirley shook her head. ‘Everybody deserves a little happiness now and again,’ she said with a knowing smile. ‘Especially you wonderful brave women! Where would I be without you three?’
Father Ben held up a warning finger. ‘Though be warned: the way Hitler’s carrying on, tougher times are coming.’
Isla stuck out her chin as she declared proudly, ‘Hitler might think he can beat us down, but he forgets we’re a nation that never surrenders.’
‘Amen to that,’ murmured the Reverend Mother.
Ada smiled at the women she’d grown to love so much. ‘When the war
is over, maybe you’ll speak of the things you fought for and achieved here at Mary Vale.’
‘How we came in shame to a home for women and babies, to give birth hidden away from society,’ Emily recalled.
Watching Robin cuddle up to Sister Mary Paul, Gloria smiled fondly. ‘How we made life-long friends.’
‘How you stopped a terrible crime and saved lives too,’ Ada reminded them.
‘How brave you all are!’ Sister Shirley exclaimed.
With tears brimming in her dreamy blue eyes, Emily said yearningly, ‘Perhaps one day, when our boys come home and the war is over …’
Acknowledgements
I’m grateful to Karin Briden, who suggested I paid a visit to the Cartmel Peninsula, a wonderful, fascinating area between Morecambe Bay and the edge of the Lake District National Park. It was the perfect location for Mary Vale Mother and Baby Home. Thanks also to Dr Clive Glazebrook and Midwife Patsy Glazebrook for their advice on childbirth past and present. Special thanks to all the cheerful volunteers at Grange-over-Sands Tourist Office and Carnforth Station Heritage Centre (home of Brief Encounter), who provided me with lots of local history, and to Jon Styles, who helped me map routes over the fells. A special thanks to my enthusiastic editors at Penguin, Clare Bowron, Rebecca Hilsdon and Donna Poppy. Finally, thank you to all my readers. On days when I sit staring blankly at my computer screen I recall your enthusiastic comments on my Facebook page and they urge me on – so please don’t stop!
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First published 2019
Copyright © Daisy Styles, 2019
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover credit: © Lee Avison/Trevillion, © Arcangel, © Getty Images and © Shutterstock
ISBN: 978-1-405-93620-0
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