They were almost halfway to London when the sky suddenly became overcast and by the time the train pulled into Euston the rain was dancing off the slabs, leaving deep puddles all along the pavements.
Adina cursed softly. Her coat was packed right in the bottom of her case, and not wishing to delay seeing Dottie whilst she rummaged about for it, she splashed along eager to get home. These days, she knew the surrounding area like the back of her hand and took the short cuts home. Nevertheless, in no time at all she was drenched to the skin, but she didn’t mind. She was almost there now and soon she would be holding her baby again.
By the time she arrived at the steps of the Montgomerys’ huge terraced townhouse she knew she must resemble a drowned rat, but she bounced up the steps, dumped her suitcase on the ground and rang the bell with a wide smile on her face. While she waited for Beattie to answer she gazed up at the tarpaulin on the roof, which was still flapping wildly in the wind and rain. Good job Mrs Montgomery had finally found someone willing to come and fix it, she thought. She rang the bell again, and after another few minutes began to fumble in her bag for the key that Fliss had given her some time ago.
At last she found it, and swiping the rain from her face she inserted it in the lock and nearly fell into the hallway.
‘I’m home!’ she shouted, as she put her suitcase down on the hall floor where the water that ran off it instantly formed a puddle on the parquet tiles.
When no one answered, she headed for the drawing-room door. Mrs Montgomery would usually be in there at this time of day listening to the wireless, but today the room was deserted.
Next she headed to the kitchen. Beattie was sure to be downstairs preparing the evening meal – but once again she found an empty room. It was then she noticed that Dottie’s big pram was gone from the hallway and her heart skipped a beat. Surely Fliss wouldn’t have taken her out in this appalling weather?
She systematically peeped into each room that led off the long hallway, before kicking off her sodden shoes and mounting the stairs barefoot.
‘Hello?’ she called at the top of the first landing, and paused to listen for an answer but there was nothing but the sound of the tarpaulin flapping on the roof and the rain slamming against the windows.
She was beginning to feel vaguely uneasy now but forced herself to stay calm as she then took the stairs to the next floor. Everywhere was deserted and she couldn’t understand it. Theo should have been home from school by now, and normally he and Fliss would be playing with Dottie in the nursery. That’s where they must be, she reasoned to herself as she climbed towards the third floor, but as she opened the nursery door her heart sank. Not only was the room empty, but Dottie’s cot had gone, and when she flew across the room and flung the wardrobe door open, Adina saw that all her clothes were missing too.
Now she hurried towards Fliss and Theo’s room, and a quick glance into their wardrobes showed that all their clothes were gone too. She found the same thing in the old lady’s room, and as she stared into the empty wardrobe in despair she felt as if her legs were going to collapse beneath her.
They had gone, but where? And why had they taken Dottie with them? Dottie was her baby, not theirs. But even as the thought sped through her mind, images of her baby holding out her arms to Fliss tortured her. Dottie absolutely adored her, and Theo too if it came to that. And then suddenly another thought occurred to her and she felt the tension in her body ease. Mrs Montgomery had recently found a builder who was prepared to come and mend the roof: perhaps they had moved to other accommodation whilst it was being repaired? Yes, that must be it – and no doubt they would have left a note for her somewhere telling her where she could join them. She systematically began to throw doors open, her eyes flitting along every surface for signs of a note but there was nothing upstairs apart from bare cupboards and drawers.
She flew down to the kitchen but there was nothing there either, so next she raced into the drawing room – and that was when she saw it. A bulky brown envelope addressed to her was propped up against a china figurine on one of the small tables. As she tore it open, a sheet of paper dropped out and she began to read it desperately.
Dear Adina,
As promised, you will find enclosed the deeds to the house; it has been signed over to you in the presence of my solicitor and is now in your name. I think it is very sensible of you to agree to Theo, Dorothy’s father, bringing her up, and I assure you she will never want for anything, least of all love. Felicity loves the child as her own and as you already know, Theo adores her. Everything you now see belongs to you. My solicitor will also forward you a small sum of money once every four weeks for the next six months to ensure that you are able to meet all the bills until you find yourself a fulltime job. I have also left you a substantial amount to pay for the repairs to the roof. I hope you will be happy in the knowledge that we will give Dorothy the very best of everything; she deserves it. You can now put the past behind you and make a brand new start. There are not many girls of your age who own their home, so make the most of what you have been given.
I remain,
Yours sincerely,
Marjorie Montgomery
As the paper slid from her hand and fluttered to the floor, Adina gasped. What was the old lady talking about? The letter implied that Theo was Dorothy’s father and that she had agreed to him and Fliss bringing her up. But Theo wasn’t Dorothy’s father and she had never agreed to Fliss and Theo taking her baby. There was nothing in the world that would ever have persuaded her to do so, so none of it made sense.
After a moment she withdrew an official-looking document from the envelope with shaking fingers and stared down at it in disbelief. These were the deeds to the house – and just as Mrs Montgomery had said, they were in her name. A copy of Dorothy’s birth certificate was there too, and on it Theo was named as the father. Now too late, she understood why he had been reluctant to show it to her. There was also a substantial sum of money which she found amounted to two hundred pounds. She had never seen such a large amount of money all at once in her whole life before. And all this was hers now, but at what cost?
Part Four
A Place of Shelter
Chapter Thirty-Nine
That evening, Adina was so miserable that she couldn’t seem to focus on anything. In Dottie’s room she had found a teddy bear that had been left behind and she sat huddled in a chair hugging it to her as tears slid unchecked down her pale cheeks. They had taken her baby! She knew that somehow she would have to find her – but where would she start looking? To search for someone in London would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. The light slowly dimmed until eventually she was sitting in total darkness but she barely even noticed, until the sudden ringing of the telephone brought her springing from the chair. It had to be Fliss or Theo, she reasoned. Perhaps they were feeling guilty over what they had done and were ringing to tell her they were coming home.
‘Yes?’ she shouted breathlessly after snatching the receiver up – and then, just as she had hoped, Fliss’s voice came to her.
‘Hello, Adina. I was just checking that you were home and that you were all right.’
‘Where are you?’ Adina demanded.
Fliss sounded upset as she replied, ‘You don’t need to know that. All you need to know is that Dottie is safe and happy. She will have everything you ever dreamed of for her and I hope that in time you’ll see this was for the best.’
‘How can it be for the best?’ Adina ranted, broken-hearted. ‘Dottie is my baby, you know she is. You can’t do this, I’ll . . . I’ll call the police!’
‘If you did, they would soon see that Dottie is better off with us and where she should be,’ Fliss told her gently. ‘If they found us I would explain that Dottie was Theo’s child – the result of a secret affair you’d had with him, and the letter that Mother left for you would substantiate that. I’d say that you felt her father and I could offer her a better life and so we gave you the house as a gesture o
f good will, and took over the care of her. When Theo registered her birth he named himself as the father on the birth certificate.’
‘You’ve really thought of everything, haven’t you?’ Adina’s voice was defeated. Who would ever believe her word against the Montgomerys’?
There was silence on the line for a moment until Fliss told her, ‘I won’t be in touch again, but rest assured that Dottie will be well taken care of. When you’ve had time to come to terms with this you’ll see that it’s for the best. Make the most of the start we have given you. Goodbye, Adina.’
‘No . . . don’t go!’ Adina cried in a panic, but the only sound that reached her was the dull whirring of the empty line. Fliss had already gone.
She stumbled back to the drawing room and picked up the little teddy again. It had been one of Dottie’s favourites, bought for her by Fliss, and when she held it to her face Adina could smell her baby on it: all Johnson’s Baby Powder and Dottie’s own sweet smell. But she was gone now, and as Adina stood there, she had the most awful premonition that she was never going to see her daughter again.
She cried herself to sleep on the sofa that night and woke in the early hours feeling stiff and sore. The morning light was just struggling beyond the lace curtains and she blinked and licked her dry lips before stumbling towards the kitchen, reasoning that a good strong cup of tea might make her feel a little better.
It was as she was sitting forlornly at the kitchen table that she heard a key in the lock of the front door and she hurried into the hall just in time to see Beattie step inside.
‘’Ello, luvvie,’ the woman greeted her cheerfully. ‘How did your dad’s funeral go then?’
‘Never mind about that for now. Where have they gone?’ Adina asked desperately.
The woman stared at Adina in astonishment. ‘Where’ve who gone?’
‘All of them.’ Adina spread her hands in despair. ‘They’ve disappeared and taken my baby, Beattie. What am I going to do?’
Beattie scratched her head, feeling more bewildered by the second. ‘Look, let’s start again over a nice cup of tea,’ she said as she headed towards the kitchen.
Adina followed her and watched as Beattie refilled the kettle and bustled about. In no time at all she had fresh cups in front of them and only then did she ask, ‘Right, now why don’t you start at the beginnin’, eh?’
And so Adina told her how she had returned to the empty house to find that it had been signed over to her and her baby gone.
‘But I thought you’d agreed to all this,’ Beattie said when Adina had finished. ‘Right since the nipper were born, old Mrs Montgomery told me that you’d ’ad ’er for the young Mr and Mrs, seein’ that they couldn’t ’ave a baby of their own an’ that Theo were her dad. They left midweek but I thought you knew all about it.’
‘Well, you thought wrong then,’ Adina sobbed. It seemed that this had been planned for some time and she hadn’t even realised what was going on. ‘Do you really think I would sell my baby for bricks and mortar? What sort of a person do you think I am? And how could Theo be her father? I was already pregnant when I came here!’ She suddenly wished that she had confided in Beattie about Karl now, but it was too late for regrets. The only people she had told were Fliss and Mrs Montgomery, and they had used this to their favour.
Deeply distressed and totally confused, Beattie patted her hand. ‘I suppose all you can do is look on the bright side now,’ she said, not quite knowing who to believe. Adina was certainly very convincing, but then the old lady had been too and she had seen firsthand how devoted the young Mr and Mrs were to the baby. ‘At least you’ve got a nice ’ouse an’ a roof over your ’ead now. An’ let’s face it, that little ’un will never want for nothing. Miss Fliss an’ Mr Theo love her to bits.’
‘I know that, but so do I,’ Fliss sobbed. ‘She’s my daughter! What am I going to do without her, Beattie?’
‘It seems as if you don’t ’ave much choice,’ the woman told her wisely. ‘What’s done is done. It’s doubtful you’ll ever find them if they don’t want to be found. They’ve got enough money behind them to be anywhere by now.’
‘I’m still going to try,’ Adina retorted with her chin in the air. ‘And there’s no time like the present, so if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go and tidy myself up a bit and make a start. Theo’s Daimler is very noticeable. If they’re still hereabouts I’m bound to spot it if I search hard enough.’
She rose from the table, but as she made to leave the room, Beattie asked her, ‘There’s something I’d best ask you before you disappear. I’m sorry to bring it up now, what with all you’ve got on your plate, but what about me? What I mean is, will you still be wanting me to come in and clean for you?’
Adina shook her head. ‘No. I’m really sorry, Beattie, but I have no intention of touching a penny of the money Mrs Montgomery left me except to pay the household bills until I find them, and I couldn’t afford to pay you on what I earn at the school.’
The woman nodded. She had guessed what the answer would be but she would miss this job. Mrs Montgomery might have been a bit of an old tartar but Fliss and Theo had been lovely to work for. She simply didn’t know what to make of it all.
Fetching a pad and pen from an enormous oak dresser that stood against one wall, she scribbled down an address, telling Adina, ‘That’s fair enough then. But if ever you should change your mind, this is where I live . . . Oh, and good luck, luvvie.’
‘Thank you.’ Adina gave her a quick hug and shot off up the stairs. Moments later she heard the front door shut and a terrible sense of loneliness engulfed her as she realised that for the very first time in her life, she was truly alone.
Adina returned to work three days later, but when she wasn’t there she spent every spare minute scouring the streets of London, which was no mean feat. As soon as the school shut each afternoon she would target a different district, hoping to catch a sight of Theo’s car, and she never returned home until she was so tired that she could barely put one foot in front of another or if it was just too dark to see anything. By the end of three weeks she had walked all around the streets of Bloomsbury, King’s Cross, Fitzrovia, Paddington and Islington – with no success at all. Each night when she returned to the house she was so weary that all she was capable of doing was making herself a hasty sandwich and falling into bed.
Initially she had hoped that the staff at the school would know of Theo and Fliss’s whereabouts, but they had not been able to help her. When Theo had handed in his notice, he simply told them that the family would be moving out of the area and had left no forwarding address. She had also visited the solicitor who had handled the transfer of the house into her name, but he had merely told her very politely that because of client confidentiality he was not allowed to divulge the whereabouts of the Montgomerys to anyone. Seeing the young woman’s deep distress he had then softened a little and confided that, even though he couldn’t have given her their address, in truth he didn’t have it either. The Montgomerys had simply informed him that they would be in touch in the future if necessary.
In desperation, Adina had then phoned Mrs Downes at the school she had worked at in Nuneaton. But the bewildered headmistress had no idea of the Montgomerys’ whereabouts either. And now the hopelessness of the situation Adina found herself in was finally coming home to her. London was such a vast place. It would take years to try and cover it on foot, and chances were that Theo and Fliss would have moved right away by now, to another part of the country, maybe – or even abroad.
The builders were due to come and start work on the roof the following week, and Adina knew that she would have to dip into the money that Mrs Montgomery had left her to pay them.
The next afternoon she came straight home after school and went immediately up to the empty nursery. And it was then that the futility of what she was doing really hit home. Theo, Fliss and her baby could really be gone for good. She just knew it now, and there was nothing she could do about it,
although she knew that she would never give up looking for them, until her last breath.
The worst thing was that, deep inside, she knew that what Mrs Montgomery had said in her letter was true. Dottie would be better off with Theo and Fliss. They would give her everything that she herself could never have provided for her. She would go to a good school and wear the best clothes and have everything a little girl could ever dream of, whereas if she had kept her, the child would have been brought up without knowing her father, and Adina would have struggled to get her the bare necessities. Thoughts of Karl made her heart break afresh, and now she finally began to accept that she had really lost him too. The letter he had written her had never arrived. But if he had intended to come for her, he would have done so by now.
She began to walk around the house, really looking at it for the very first time. It was a fine house and at one time she would have marvelled at the thought of owning it, but now it brought her no joy. Her first instinct had been to hand the keys back to the solicitor and tell him that she wanted no part of it, but what good would that do? It wouldn’t bring Dottie back and she would be homeless.
As she wandered back downstairs she noticed a letter lying on the door mat that she had missed when she first came in, and she saw that it was from Beryl. Taking it into the kitchen, she sat down and began to read it. Within a minute or so, she realised that her friend was in an even worse position than she was. She was desperately unhappy and worried about her baby’s health. She told Adina that she rarely saw Tyrone, and when she did she had to beg him for enough money to buy even the barest essentials for her little one. His parents treated her as a skivvy and she sounded so desperate that Adina’s heart ached for her.
Laying the letter aside, she made herself a cup of Camp Coffee, and as she sat at the table sipping it an idea suddenly occurred to her. Beryl could come here to live with her! The house was far too big for one person; she was rattling around in it like a pea in a pod and she had more than enough money to send some for Beryl to return to England.
A Band of Steel Page 32
