The Winter Baby Read online

  Your mother,

  Ann Amos

  Jessie was agitated. ‘This will come as a shock to Marion; we must get in touch with her at the hospital. Mrs Amos can’t stay here; I hope Marion will have her in the boarding house where she is staying . . . Oh dear, I must get on. Why is she vague about the date like that?’

  ‘Because she likes to surprise people,’ Kitty put in.

  ‘More likely to worry them,’ Heather said knowingly.

  The following day, after taking the children to school, Daisy and Jimmy went to the shops. While they were there, Daisy decided to find out about a group of women who met in the village hall and were knitting for the troops. Money rattled in tins on shop counters as customers were asked to contribute towards the wool for the garments. Heather might be interested too, Daisy thought, now that she was a proficient knitter.

  Sam had gone to the brickworks to make sure all was as it should be there, and to bring back some more things Kathleen needed from the house. He fastened a sack to the carrier on the bike. After locking up, he stood for a long moment looking up at the house that had taken years to build. It is something to be proud of, he told himself, but at some point we will have to let everything go. Well, I fulfilled my promise to my uncle . . . He sighed as he mounted his bicycle.

  Sam had learned that his training in basic warfare would be carried out locally. He would be able to nip home on occasion to begin with, especially if he joined the men training in Knole Park, Sevenoaks. There had been such an influx of volunteers that there weren’t yet many facilities for training, and so village halls, barns and big empty houses with grounds were commandeered. They read in the paper that in London, men drilled in the big parks, with broomsticks instead of rifles; these were in short supply, for the men at the Front must be equipped first.

  Jessie, alone in the house for once, took the opportun-ity to ring Marion, who was not pleased at her mother’s news, particularly as she was called from the hospital ward to take the phone call. Sister had told her to hurry back and not talk for too long.

  ‘Where on earth is she at this moment?’ Marion asked Jessie.

  ‘I don’t know. I presume she’ll come here thinking you and Danny still live with us.’

  ‘Well, let me know when she arrives and I’ll get time off to collect her. She’ll need to share my bed in the lodgings; most of the VADs stay here, as it’s near the hospital. I hope she is grateful for your help!’

  Jessie had just put the phone down when there was a loud rapping on the front door. ‘It can’t be, can it?’ she exclaimed.

  When she opened the door, Mrs Amos was standing there, surrounded by her luggage. ‘Well, aren’t you going to ask me in and make me a cup of tea?’ she demanded. ‘Where’s Danny? I’ll leave my things here for him to bring inside. Marion is working, I presume?’

  How am I going to break the news that there have been big changes here? Jessie wondered.

  ‘Your card didn’t arrive until yesterday,’ she said. ‘Have you had breakfast? I can soon rustle up some eggs and bacon.’

  Mrs Amos shook her head and sat down on one of the kitchen chairs. Jessie saw her trembling mouth and realised that she was blinking away tears. She has aged, she thought, her hair is white, her face wrinkled from too much sun . . . ‘I have lost my appetite,’ Mrs Amos said. She swallowed convulsively. ‘My throat is dry; I’ll be glad of the tea.’

  ‘Oh my dear, I was sorry to hear about Bert.’ Jessie put an extra spoonful of sugar in the cup. There were rumours that imported food might soon be rationed, but Mrs Amos needed a boost of energy, she thought.

  ‘Things didn’t work out as we’d believed they would. There was just as much warmongering there as there is here, with young men going off to join the army. In Sydney, we saw a huge new battleship in the harbour, ready to leave at short notice. It was well guarded; people were not allowed to take photographs. Then Bert had a stroke and was taken to hospital. We were married by then, as we had intended to stay in Australia until all this happened.

  ‘Bert died within a few hours, which was a blessing really, as I don’t know how I would have managed to leave the country with a sick husband. We had some trouble during the journey back with German U-boats; they lurk at the bottom of the sea. Luckily our ship evaded them, but when we finally arrived, we were kept on board for hours and questioned about our motives for returning here.’

  ‘Drink your tea, Ann. You’re home now, aren’t you?’ Jessie knew she must tell her the news. ‘Danny has joined up, and Marion is training to be a nurse – neither of them is here.’

  ‘Wilf, where is he?’

  ‘At school. Don’t worry, he’ll stay with me. It seems for the best. Sam will be off soon too; Kathleen and the children have moved back here.’

  ‘You’re saying there’s no room for me?’ Mrs Amos didn’t sound like herself at all. ‘Where can I go?’

  ‘Marion has lodgings near the hospital in Sevenoaks; she hopes to collect you shortly and take you there. Meanwhile, their room is empty at the moment, and you are welcome to stay here until she comes. You will want to see your grandson, of course.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he will remember me,’ Mrs Amos said dolefully.

  ‘I’m sure he will.’ There were footsteps in the hall. ‘Kathleen is back with the milk.’

  ‘She turned out all right after all,’ Mrs Amos said unexpectedly.

  ‘Yes, she did. I am very fond of her, as I am of Marion.’ Jessie bit her lip. How can I tell her that Marion and Danny have separated?

  Kathleen came into the kitchen with the churns. She was wearing her old breeches, but since she’d filled out after bearing three children, they were now a tight fit. ‘Where’s Jimmy?’ she asked first, with a sidelong glance at Mrs Amos, expecting a snub or a snide comment.

  ‘He’s shopping with Daisy in the village. They say there will be shortages soon, so we are stocking up – they could be a while yet,’ Jessie replied. ‘Did you see the luggage on the front step? We’ll have to wait for Abraham to move it.’

  ‘I nearly tripped over it with the yoke on my shoulders,’ Kathleen said ruefully. She took the milk through to the pantry. When she returned, she sat opposite Mrs Amos at the table and asked hesitantly, ‘Did you have a good journey?’

  ‘I did not,’ was the terse reply. Then Mrs Amos added, ‘I apologise for my rudeness. You might as well call me Ann or Annie, as they all did in Australia. How are you, Kathleen? I hear there is trouble again in Ireland and that de Valera has declared neutrality . . . You are missing Sam, no doubt?’

  ‘Sam is still here at the moment; he’s making sure every-thing is secure over at the brickyard. I know I mustn’t show him how much I worry about him going to France.’ Kathleen decided to ignore the reference to her birthplace.

  ‘Danny is already over there,’ Jessie put in, ‘He is involved in the military training of horses, not only ours, but from all parts of the country. The horses had their hides trimmed short because it is very muddy in the fields round the trenches. Danny worries that without their winter coats, they will be affected by the cold weather later on.’

  ‘I have to get back to work,’ Kathleen apologised. ‘I will see you later, Ann. I’ll tell Doc you’ve arrived; he may want to pop in and say hello.’

  When they were on their own, Mrs Amos said rather tartly, ‘I gather your marriage is turning out all right? I was worried about you at the time, but you certainly look well, Jessie, unlike me.’ She supposed it would be difficult at her age to replace Bert, though some of his coarse habits had repelled her.

  Jessie offered, ‘I’ll take you upstairs now if you like. You look as if you need to catch up on your sleep.’

  Later on, when Sam was back, he took his mother to one side and confided, ‘I’ve only got two more nights at home, so I was going to ask if Kathleen and I could use the spare room for that time; we can’t . . . do anything while we share with the girls . . .’

  ‘Oh d
ear, of course I should have realised that, but what could I do? She has nowhere to go until Marion fetches her.’ She paused and then said, ‘Sam, I don’t like to interfere, but I really don’t think we could cope with another baby in the house . . .’

  ‘I’m aware of that, Mother, don’t worry,’ he reassured her. ‘Let’s hope we get at least one night to ourselves . . .’

  *

  Young Dr Gillespie was having his breakfast in the boarding house when Marion came downstairs, taking them two at a time and stumbling as she reached the bottom. He was on his feet immediately, steadying her. ‘Whoa! Where are you off to in such a hurry? I was hoping it was your day off,’ he grinned, ‘and that you’d agree to spend it with me.’

  ‘We’ll probably see too much of each other when we go to France,’ she replied. ‘I didn’t expect it to be so soon.’ She had an opened letter in her hand. How could she explain to her mother that she couldn’t bring her back here? she thought. She liked Bruce Gillespie, who came from Edinburgh and had just graduated from medical school; she supposed that meant he was around twenty-six. Just a boy, while she was still a married woman, and thirty years old.

  ‘Put on a nice dress and let your hair down,’ he urged her. ‘You look so prim in that drab uniform, though I can tell you are a pretty girl underneath.’

  Girl! Marion thought, glancing down at her left hand; she no longer wore her wedding ring. ‘How would you like to drive me to Home Farm, Bruce, at the back of beyond between Tatsfield and Westerham? I am supposed to fetch my mother back here with me – she has just returned from Australia – and I could do with some moral support. It will be good to see my son before I leave for France too.’ She had seen Dr Gillespie’s motor car and thought it might be nice to bowl along with the top open, enjoying the wind in her hair.

  ‘I didn’t realise you were married,’ he said slowly.

  ‘It is all very amicable; we are separated but in the process of divorcing. We won’t see my husband; he is already in France. My boy, Wilfred, is eight years old.’

  ‘Who looks after him?’ Bruce asked.

  ‘His grandmother, Jessie. Well, will you take me there or not? I know Jessie will make you welcome, but my mother, I’m afraid, is rather . . . aloof.’

  He made his mind up. ‘Could we have a light lunch together on the way, before we go on to the back of beyond, as you call it?’

  ‘Why not?’ Marion said. ‘I’ll have some of this lumpy porridge first, and then I’ll go and get changed as you suggest.’ She added daringly, ‘I’d like to get to know you better.’

  She hadn’t had occasion to wear the summery dress she had packed in her trunk on impulse, but now she shook it out. A bit crumpled, but the weather was warm for October. She unpinned the severe knot in the nape of her neck, and shook her hair free. She would have worn her straw boater, but she hadn’t remembered a hatpin.

  Did she need a jacket? she wondered. The dress, her own design, showed off her ankles, and she decided against the lace jabot she usually wore to fill in the low neckline. She was glad to be free for a while of the stiff starched collar of her nurse’s dress, which made her chin sore. Gloves? Her hands, so often in water while she gave bed baths to patients, needed covering up. She snatched up a lacy shoulder shawl, and smiled at her reflection in the mirror, then went downstairs to join Bruce, pretending not to notice his admiring glances.

  He was about the same height as Marion, with a sturdy, stocky build and a thatch of black hair. She fancied he would look even more handsome in a kilt with a sporran. Like all the men she encountered, he obviously appreciated her curvaceous figure, and for some reason she felt a tingle of excitement.

  ‘Ready to go?’ he asked, offering his arm to escort her to the motor car.

  I shouldn’t be doing this, she thought belatedly. Goodness knows how Mother will take it. I hope she won’t say something tactless.

  TWENTY-SIX

  They sat opposite each other on hard wooden chairs at a small table near the bar in the local pub. ‘I’ve never been inside a public house before,’ Marion admitted. She wrinkled her nose, ‘Or tasted beer! Mother made some rather potent elderflower wine, though.’

  ‘I guessed you might not have imbibed beer, so that’s why I got you a half-pint glass,’ Bruce said. ‘Eat your pork pie; we mustn’t be too long, I suppose.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a pickled egg,’ she admitted, ‘as there isn’t any salad, and I daren’t eat those pickled onions like you, or Mother will know. She’s bound to notice my breath.’

  He went to the counter, where a pickled egg was duly scooped out of the jar and served on a plate. ‘Thanks!’ she said, and jabbed it with her fork. It slithered about on the plate and they both laughed. ‘Got it!’ she cried.

  ‘Marion,’ he said suddenly, out of the blue, ‘do you still love your husband? I gather it was a childhood romance and you married young.’

  ‘Do I love Danny? Of course I do, I’m fond of all his family. But I’m not in love with him any more. When I had Wilf, it was a very difficult labour, and although I knew Danny wanted more children, I couldn’t . . . you know . . . I couldn’t go through that again.’

  ‘I understand. It obviously made both of you unhappy,’ Bruce said.

  ‘There was another reason,’ she said slowly. ‘Danny and his brother Sam both fell in love with Kathleen, the girl Sam eventually married. Danny swore to me it was just an infatuation, but . . .’ She broke off. ‘Why am I telling you all this?’

  ‘Because I’m a good listener?’ he said. ‘I know if it was me, I wouldn’t dream of being unfaithful.’

  ‘Danny wasn’t unfaithful physically, but I suppose he was in his thoughts,’ Marion said. ‘Well, we’d better go and face my mother, but I warn you, she’ll give you a grilling!’

  *

  It was actually Jessie who was disgruntled, because she had planned a good lunch for them all. She’d cooked a ham hock with a couple of bay leaves, and had picked lots of fresh salad stuff from the garden. There were jacket potatoes, her special recipe mayonnaise, cottage cheese with chives for Doc, and crusty bread, plus apple tart to follow, with whipped cream. They drank elderflower cordial rather than wine, as none of the latter had been brewed since Mrs Amos went to Australia. They waited until 2 p.m. and then decided they must eat. ‘She is obviously not coming,’ Mrs Amos said. ‘How impolite of my daughter not to let us know.’

  They were having the usual cup of tea out in the garden after washing up, while Daisy went to fetch the children home from school, when Jimmy fell and grazed his knee on the crazy paving path and yelled so hard they didn’t hear the motor car arriving, or the knock on the front door.

  ‘Shush!’ Kathleen said to her red-faced son. ‘I’ll get the box of ointment . . .’ So it was she who heard the repeated knocking, when she went indoors. Ointment in hand, together with a roll of bandage, she opened the front door. Her eyes widened as she saw that Marion had a companion. Now she wished she had changed out of stable clothes before lunch!

  ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘Everyone is in the garden, and you’re just in time, Marion, to do a bit of first aid on an injured knee!’

  ‘This is Dr Gillespie, who is our first aid instructor,’ Marion explained. ‘Give me the remedies and I’ll see to the injured party!’ She left the other two in the hall.

  Flustered, Kathleen held out her hand to Bruce. ‘I’m Kathleen, Marion’s sister-in-law.’

  ‘She told me about you,’ he said, as he shook her hand.

  ‘Oh . . .’ Kathleen said uncertainly. She bit her lip. ‘Only nice things, I hope?’

  ‘Naturally,’ he replied. ‘Well, aren’t you going to take me outside to introduce me to your family?’

  They joined the group in the garden and introductions were made.

  ‘Well, Marion, you have deigned to visit me, but I have a feeling you are reluctant to take me back with you,’ Mrs Amos said, ignoring the unexpected visitor.

&nbs
p; ‘Actually, Mother, it’s just been confirmed that our set of VAD nurses will be going over to France next week – you won’t want to be in Sevenoaks alone without me, will you? The hostel,’ she added tactlessly, ‘is really for young people training at the hospital. I was wondering,’ she looked appealingly at Jessie, ‘if you might stay on in our room here until you find somewhere else, as neither of us will be back for some time.’

  ‘Well, Jessie?’ Mrs Amos demanded.

  What could Jessie say except ‘Of course you can, Ann. I’m afraid I shall have to ask you to help with things here, inside and out, but you’d be earning your keep, of course.’

  The girls and Wilf returned and rushed straight outside to see what was going on. When Kitty heard that Marion’s friend was Scottish, she asked him immediately, ‘Have you brought your bagpipes?’ And Doc, who’d come home at the same time, was heard to say, ‘Bagpipes! Instruments of torture! Can’t stand the noise!’

  Fortunately, Bruce saw the funny side. ‘I can play the pipes, but I prefer to hurl the caber at the Highland Games!’

  Shy Wilf hung back, seeing Grandma Amos’s disapproving look.

  ‘What’s a caber?’ Heather asked, before Daisy rounded them up to go and change out of their school clothes.’

  Jimmy plucked at Doc’s coat. ‘Look Gran’pa, I is an injured soldier!’

  Doc replied, ‘A brave one, I see; no tears, that’s good.’

  Sam was back too. Kathleen rushed to impart the news. ‘She’s staying on! We won’t have the room tonight after all.’

  Sam lifted her up and hugged her tight. ‘There’s always the old sofa,’ he whispered. ‘It’s back in the living room.’

  ‘I never thought of that! Of course you always know what to do, Sam – that’s why I love you so much, and will do for ever and ever,’ Kathleen told him solemnly.