Summer House

by Nichols, Mary

  Built of brick and flint, her cottage was the end one of a terrace of four, intended for farm labourers. If his aunt’s cottage was small, this was miniscule. Two tiny rooms downstairs and a lean-to scullery at the back, two bedrooms upstairs. There were no services laid on and the cooking was done on a kitchen range and a Primus stove. ‘You are just in time to draw some water for me,’ was her greeting, as she picked up a galvanised bucket and handed it to him. ‘Make sure you close the lid of the well properly, don’t want anyone falling in.’ The well served all four cottages.

  He filled the bucket and took it back to her. She ladled water into a kettle and put it on the Primus. ‘There’s no one at home across the way,’ he said, watching her fetch a tea pot and caddy from a cupboard in the corner.

  ‘Well, there wouldn’t be. Joyce don’ leave off ’til six.’ The kettle whistled and she made the tea, then fetched two cups and saucers and a jug of milk. ‘Now, let’s sit down and have a cuppa and you can tell me what’s buggin’ you. Suff’n is, I know. Yew’ve bin like a bear with a sore head for days. Fallen out with Laura, hev yew?’

  ‘Yes and no.’ He sat at the table opposite her. It was spread with a stained check oilcloth.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘She wouldn’t see me and when I did at last get to talk to her she told me such a tale, I don’t know what to believe.’

  ‘She’s Lady Helen’s daughter.’

  ‘You knew!’

  ‘Don’ tek a genius to work it out. Her ladyship disappeared for months and it must ha’ bin about the time Laura were born. Her ma said she had gone to live near where her husband were stationed, but I know for a fact he were in France.’ She poured two cups of tea while she talked and handed one to him. ‘Taken prisoner, he were. Stands to reason it had to be hushed up. Didn’t know she’d kept in touch with the girl though. She shouldn’t hev brought ’er back here.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Bound to put the cat among the pigeons.’

  ‘Laura’s only just found out herself. She’s very upset about it.’

  ‘Well, she would be, wouldn’t she? But I don’t see why you should get y’self in a tizzy over it.’

  ‘There’s more.’

  ‘Oh.’ It was said guardedly.

  ‘Yes. Lady Barstairs told Laura that Pop was her father. Why would she do that, d’you suppose? Could it be true?’

  She shrugged. ‘How should I know? Oliver was often up at the Hall, but then so were a lot of others. The Earl kept open house for serving officers. Could ha’ bin anyone.’

  ‘Laura believes it, that’s the trouble. She says we’re half-brother and-sister. Do you think we are?’

  ‘Dunno, do I?’

  ‘Who does know?’

  ‘Your pa might. There ag’in, he might not. He’d married your ma and gone back to Canada time her ladyship come back from wherever it was she went.’

  ‘It’s the devil of a mess.’

  She reached out a gnarled hand and put it over his. ‘Forget it, son. Put it behind you. There’s others girls, just as pretty, and they don’ hev someone else’s nipper hangin’ onto their skirts. It i’n’t worth all the grief.’

  It was hard advice to take but he had to accept it. He knew it was no good hanging about the village. He couldn’t put on the cheerful face and broad grin everyone was used to seeing, and he might as well take himself off back to his unit. At least there no one knew what he was going through, but he’d go to the wedding, if only to prove to himself that he was in control and his grandmother was right.

  He didn’t see Laura again until they were filing into church. The twins, dressed in long trousers, school blazers and pristine white shirts, were full of self-importance as they acted as ushers and directed everyone to their pews. He saw her sitting on the other side of the aisle between Helen and Kathy with Robby on her lap and gave her a half smile as he took his seat between Joyce and Stella.

  Alec had asked a few friends who, like him, were on shore leave while their ship was repaired after a run-in with a U-boat, and Daphne had invited one or two London friends. The rest of the church was filled with villagers, all of whom had made an effort to dress for the occasion. Laura hadn’t seen so many colourful dresses or fancy hats since before the war. Ian, now a private soldier in training somewhere in the north of England, was missing, as were Ken and Steve, who couldn’t get leave. They were training for some new job but were expecting to be posted to an operational unit at any time.

  The bridegroom looked smart and handsome in his uniform, with his best man beside him, also in uniform, and the bride looked radiant as she came down the aisle on William’s arm, dressed in pale blue satin with a saucy little pill box hat to match, with Jenny and Meg as bridesmaids. The congregation rose to their feet and the service began. It was a poignant moment for Laura because she found herself remembering her own wedding day, a day without a wedding. That was the worst day of her life, as bad as learning she was not her mother’s child, even worse than the day Dad had died because he had been very ill and in constant pain and she could not selfishly wish to prolong that.

  She took part in the service, threw confetti at the happy couple afterwards and went to Bridge Farm for the reception. There was plenty of food; living on a farm did have its compensations. She ate ham sandwiches, scotch eggs and sausage rolls and drank home-made elderberry wine, which was very good, talked and laughed, teased the twins, and all the while in the back of her mind was the question, how much did everyone know? Were they staring at her, talking behind her back?

  She looked round the throng. Alec and Daphne, obviously happy, were circulating, accepting everyone’s good wishes; Helen was helping Kathy take round plates of food; Wayne was standing between Meg and Jenny, entertaining them with some story about his arrival in England and not looking at her; Joyce was laughing at something Constable Harris was telling her and Stella was openly flirting with Alec’s best man. Lenny, she supposed it was Lenny because he was the quiet one, had taken charge of Robby and they were sitting under the table playing with a toy farmyard she guessed had once been Steve’s. These people had become her friends, they had taken her to their hearts in a way no one in crowded London had ever done. If they knew the truth about her, they were not showing it; she was drawn into their conversation as if she were one of them.

  William called for silence and proposed a toast to the bride and groom, and the groom replied, amid much laughter. The health of the bridesmaids was drunk and then William added another toast. ‘We must not forget those who cannot be with us today,’ he said. ‘So let us drink to absent friends.’ They echoed his words and sipped their wine, each thinking of someone they knew who could not be with them, either because they had lost their lives, were missing or taken prisoner or, like Steve and Ken, on duty. Laura, raising her glass, caught Helen’s eye and found herself the recipient of a tentative smile. If she were going to stay in the village, even for a short time, she was going to have to get along with her. It was the first time she had admitted to herself that she didn’t want to leave, but it made her want to know the details of what she had so furiously refused to entertain before. She needed to understand, to know about her father, the father who had given her life, not the one who had loved and nurtured her in childhood. Then she would make up her mind whether to go or stay.

  That evening, when she and Helen were sitting together in strained silence in the sitting room, the wedding over and the newly married couple gone off on a few days’ honeymoon, the chores for the day finished and Robby tucked safely in bed, she ventured to say, ‘Helen, you said you’d explain.’

  ‘Yes, when you are ready.’

  ‘I’m ready now. My head is full of questions, mostly about Mum and Dad, I mean Tom, of course. Did he know the truth? How did Mum manage to convince everyone I belonged to her? If you loved me, how could you bear to give me up? If someone had tried to take Robby from me, I would have fought tooth and nail to keep him.’

  Helen managed
a smile at this catalogue, but it showed Laura was coming round and it gave her hope. ‘I’ll tell you the whole story as it happened and that will probably answer most of your questions. If you want to ask more when I’ve finished, then I’ll do my best to answer them.’

  ‘OK.’

  There was a whole minute of silence and Laura began to wonder if Helen would ever start. She got up and drained the last of the brandy into two glasses and wondered incongruously when they would be able to get any more. Then she put a glass in Helen’s hands and sat down opposite her. ‘I’m listening.’

  Helen had been wondering where to begin. Where was the beginning? Meeting Oliver? Marrying Richard? Anne’s miscarriage? Or was Laura’s need to know centred only on how she came to be given to Anne and how her two mothers had met and connived to keep her in ignorance? She could baldly state the facts, but that would not give Laura a true understanding of a heartbreaking situation. She smiled suddenly. ‘I feel I ought to begin, once upon a time there was a beautiful princess—’

  ‘Dad used to start his stories like that when I was a little girl. I loved him. He’ll always be my dad, whatever you say, and Mum will always be my mum.’

  ‘Of course. But this is not a fairy story; there is no happy ending. I thought there was when you and Robby came to live with me and we got on so well together, but it was a fool’s paradise. I think I need to explain the kind of life I lived as a child and as a young girl growing up. It couldn’t have been more different from Anne’s. We were at opposite ends of the social scale, but the harsh discipline Anne endured in the charity home and when she went out to work was matched by my father’s autocratic ruling of everyone, including my mother and brother and me; both lives were loveless until your mother met Tom and I met Oliver. My father’s word was law and it never occurred to us that he was ever in the wrong. I was expected to follow a strict social code and when he said Richard would make me a suitable husband, I believed him. I was only eighteen…’ Now she had started, her mind went back to the time and she found herself reliving it. She forgot her audience and spoke as if thinking aloud. ‘I was so ignorant of life, ignorant of everything. Until I met Oliver, I had no idea what love was. I suppose you could say I didn’t know any more afterwards either…’

  Laura listened without interrupting. She was reluctant to agree that Helen’s life had been so strict or that Lady Hardingham had been so afraid of her husband that she could connive in the physical wrenching apart of mother and baby, but she could not doubt it had happened. And it was hard to take in the fact that Mum had deceived everyone in the way she had, pretending to be pregnant, but it was typical of Dad to forgive her and to love the daughter who had been thrust upon him. He came out of the story the best of all. Helen’s description of her search for her daughter after her parents died and her confrontation with Anne was heart-rending because she could identify with both sides. ‘You were a happy child, anyone could see that,’ Helen said. ‘It would have been cruel to try and take you from your home, even though I believed I had the legal right to claim you back because it wasn’t a proper adoption. I made a promise to Anne and I kept it, not willingly, I may add, but for your sake. Anne repaid me by sending for me when she was ill and bringing us together. Only you can judge whether she was right to do so.’

  ‘I don’t want to judge anyone. I only want to understand.’

  ‘And do you?’

  ‘I think so. Did you ever see Oliver Donovan again?’

  ‘No. I wrote to him as soon as I knew I was pregnant, quite expecting him to acknowledge his child, even if he could not come back immediately, but I had no reply. I didn’t even know he had survived the war until his son arrived in Beckbridge. I don’t even know if he knows about you. What did Wayne say when you told him?’

  ‘He refused to believe it and talked of confronting his father for confirmation. I advised against it on the grounds it would upset his mother. There’s enough people being made miserable over this without adding more.’

  ‘Do we have to be miserable? Everyone acted for the best. No one’s to blame.’

  ‘I feel, oh, I don’t know, hard done by.’

  ‘Should you?’ Helen looked searchingly at her, hoping for reconciliation, but realising perhaps it was a little too soon, but at least they were talking again and that was a step in the right direction. ‘Just think what could have happened if you had been handed over to someone who didn’t care, someone who, having got you, decided they could not love you. Your life might have been very different.’

  ‘I know. I’ve been telling myself that over and over, that I ought to think myself lucky having two loving mothers. I suppose I will come to appreciate that in the end, but at the moment all I can think of is that I am a bastard, that my birth certificate is a forgery, and if I were ever to fall in love and want to marry, I would have too much explaining to do. And there’s Robby. What will he think when he grows up?’

  ‘Why should he think anything, except that you are his mum and you love him. And there is a much better term than bastard for both of you, and that is “love child”. It is a pity they don’t put that on birth certificates. And if the man you love is half decent, he won’t care two hoots what happened in the past.’

  ‘It’s a good thing it’s not Wayne.’ Laura smiled suddenly, thinking of Steve. He knew she had never been married. Perhaps he also knew about her and Helen, or about Helen and Oliver; everyone else in the village seemed to. Poor Steve, she shouldn’t have been so off hand with him. If he were to walk through the door this very minute, she would throw herself into his arms. He had always turned up when she needed him, so where was her rock now?

  The year and the war ground on relentlessly – Stalingrad, Moscow, North Africa, Malta, U-boats attacking Atlantic convoys; air raids. The BBC and the papers told the population all they were allowed to. Every morning the newsreaders reported more raids on enemy targets, of damage done and how many allied aircraft had not returned. These included American Flying Fortresses and Liberators, which set off from their bases in East Anglia to pound enemy targets in daylight. The people of Beckbridge looked up as they passed over and wished them a safe return. At the end of October, General Montgomery’s forces inflicted a heavy defeat on Rommel at El Alamein. It was the first good news for a very long time and everyone was suddenly more cheerful. The Government allowed the church bells to be rung on the following Sunday in celebration, though Churchill warned them it was not the end, nor even the beginning of the end, but it was perhaps the end of the beginning.

  Could she say the same about her own life? Laura wondered. Helen’s explanation had forced her to come to terms with the truth, and for everyone’s sake she was doing her best to behave just as she always had. It was easy when she was at work; she could put her problems behind her and concentrate on helping her patients. But when she was off duty, when, at the end of a long day, she was able to relax and turn her mind to other things, it all came back to her, heaped itself in her brain and buzzed round and round like a relentless bee, until she didn’t know what to think, what to feel.

  The beginning was gone – Mum, Dad, Bob, Wayne and probably Steve too. Only now did she admit to herself that Steve had been more than just her rock. She had come to love him, to look forward to his letters, to seeing him on his infrequent leaves, seeing the grin spreading across his face and into his eyes, hearing his soft, warm voice, feeling his kisses, making her feel wanted and special. She was sorry she had been so off-putting when he asked her to marry him, but then again she was not. She would hate to have him change his mind about her, hate it even more if he felt duty-bound to marry her because he had asked and couldn’t go back on his word. Better this way. The end of the beginning. What lay ahead she could not even guess.

  It was called ‘oboe’, a navigational device that used radio pulses transmitted from two stations in England to the aircraft in the air. By measuring the time they took to reach the plane and return, its position could be calculated and a si
gnal sent to tell the bomber exactly when it was over its target. Steve wasn’t sure about that, but post-raid reconnaissance seemed to confirm that the bombing was becoming more accurate.

  Having done their Pathfinder training, Steve and Ken had been posted to Marham and been allocated a Mosquito, which, according to Ken, looked like a pregnant duck because of its swollen belly intended to take a 4,000 lb bomb. They carried no weapons themselves and were expected to rely on speed to get them out of trouble and the fact that the Mosquito could climb higher than enemy fighters.

  Tonight, the Pathfinders had gone in to mark the target with coloured target indicators just as the main force arrived over it. ‘Good timing,’ Steve had commented, praising his navigator, as he turned for the home run. By then the flak formed an almost continuous wall of fire and it was hell trying to get through it. They flew low, trying to keep under the guns’ trajectory. Once over the North Sea, they would make height.

  ‘Skip, I don’t want to worry you,’ Ken said laconically. ‘But I reckon we’re taking half a German forest home with us, do you think you can make a little height?’

  Steve smiled to himself as he obediently lifted the nose a fraction and they left Germany behind and flew on over the Dutch countryside. This was their last op before some much longed-for leave; he would be at home for Christmas. His mother was as excited as a child. It showed itself in the enthusiasm in her letters, the plans she was making. She spoke of stirring the pudding and everyone making a wish, of finding the ingredients for making a cake, of fattening a goose and killing a pig. It was beginning to affect him. Home for Christmas, how great that sounded when said aloud. Ken, poring over his charts behind him, heard him and smiled. ‘Belgian coast coming up and a lot more flak,’ he reported.

  Steve was relieved when they left the land behind and the sea appeared below them, glinting like pewter in the moonlight. Now he could make some height. He hardly had time to do so before they were spotted by a lone enemy fighter which dived into the attack. Steve took evasive action, but the Mosquito pitched suddenly, leaving him struggling with the controls.