Love Walked Right In

by Pam Weaver

  ‘But that’s terrible! Are you absolutely sure she was raped?’

  ‘How can you ask such a thing?’ said Ruby crossly. ‘She wouldn’t be lying in a hospital bed with half her insides in shreds if it weren’t true, now would she?’

  ‘She could have egged him on,’ Rachel muttered.

  ‘Rachel!’

  Her sister-in-law had the grace to look ashamed. ‘Yes, yes, you’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just that I met Mrs Hobden myself. She seemed a bit snooty, but she’s highly respectable. I’m just surprised it happened in her house, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, obviously she didn’t do it personally,’ Ruby snapped. ‘What was her husband like?’

  ‘Respectable,’ Rachel repeated. ‘He’s in politics. Quite ambitious, by all accounts. They’re a bit stingy, but I suppose that’s how these people stay rich. God this is awful – rape . . .’

  ‘One thing is for sure,’ said Ruby, ‘you can’t send her back there.’

  Oh, absolutely,’ replied Rachel, ‘but under the terms of her visa, Rivka has to be employed.’

  A few weeks later Ruby and Jim were in Lena and Eric’s home for another celebration. This time it was Jean’s birthday. Along with May, they were the only guests. Rivka was convalescing at the guest house and Bea was looking after her.

  When it was time for the cake, Lena struck a match and lit the three candles. Calling out ‘Ready?’, she heard Eric drawing Jean’s attention to the kitchen door.

  Lena had spent all the previous evening decorating the cake, which she had made all by herself, and she was justly proud of her achievement. It was only a Victoria sponge, but she had pressed into the middle half a doll that she’d picked up from a jumble sale, and had made the cake look as if it were her ballgown. Each of the pink-and-white icing-sugar stars had a silver ball in the middle, and Lena hoped the magnificence of the dress would detract attention from the doll’s slightly sunken right eye.

  As she stepped over the threshold and everyone sang ‘Happy birthday to you’, Lena placed the plate carefully in front of a starry-eyed Jean.

  ‘Blow the candles out and make a wish,’ cried May.

  ‘I don’t think she understands about making wishes,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Yes, she does,’ May insisted. ‘Jean, tell us what would you like most in the whole wide world?’

  The little girl seemed puzzled. She pulled her toy rabbit to her face and rubbed his stripy leg against her cheek. Lena held her breath, thinking: Please don’t let her say anything. She never talks about Mr and Mrs West; surely she must have forgotten about them by now.

  ‘You told me just now,’ May prompted.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Lena interrupted crisply. ‘Blow out the candles.’

  Jean’s face suddenly lit up with a broad smile. ‘Ice cream! I wish I had ice cream.’

  Everyone laughed – Lena with a sense of relief.

  Although they didn’t know a lot of children, she couldn’t let Jean’s third birthday go by without some sort of celebration, and since they had become good friends with Ruby and Jim, it seemed safe enough to invite them. Ruby’s younger sister loved mothering Jean when she came round. Sometimes May brought a school friend with her, but today she was alone.

  Jean blew out the candles and everybody clapped. Lena couldn’t have been happier. This was everything she’d ever dreamed of: her own home, with Eric and Jean. She felt more relaxed than she had ever done before. Coming to Worthing had been the right thing to do. Next year she would be confident enough to make sure Jean had some friends of her own age at her party, but for now it was good just to have Ruby and Jim and May.

  They cut the cake and after everyone had complimented Lena on the lightness of her sponge, she went back into the kitchen to get Jean’s special surprise. On his way back home from work, Eric had bought a Lyons Maid brick ice cream. It was wrapped in several layers of newspaper and she’d put it on the stone floor to keep it cool. Being the end of January, that wasn’t too much of a problem, until they brought it into the warm house. When she unwrapped it, it was very soft, but had kept its shape. Jean was thrilled when Lena walked in with the ice cream and declared to all assembled that her wish (possibly planted in her head by May) had come true.

  As they cleared up the party things, Ruby broached Lena about the thing that was uppermost in her mind. ‘Lena, now that you know I am having a baby,’ she began, ‘I wanted to ask you something.’

  ‘I guessed,’ said Lena, her face all lit up. ‘I was thrilled when Jim told me. Oh, Ruby, I am so pleased for you both.’

  ‘The thing is,’ Ruby went on, ‘I shall need more help in the guest house.’

  Lean put up her hand. ‘Whatever it is, consider it done,’ she said stoutly. ‘Eric is quite happy for me to work for you. I’ll give you all the hours you want.’

  ‘I’m all right for a bit,’ Ruby cautioned. ‘My mother has promised to help when she can, but how do you feel about being the manager when the baby comes?’

  ‘No!’ cried Lena a little too quickly, then added in a more measured tone, ‘I haven’t a clue where to start with something like that.’ She couldn’t possibly be up front in the guest house. What if someone from her village came to stay? What if someone recognized her?

  ‘I’ll train you,’ Ruby began.

  ‘No,’ said Lena firmly. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t. Whatever you need done in the kitchen or in the rooms, I’m quite happy to do that, but I don’t want anything to do with the guests.’

  Ruby was a bit startled. She was about to say something, when Jim came through to the kitchen saying that he was going back home to feed the monkey. ‘I brought the rest of the ice cream in,’ he said. ‘Where shall I put it?’

  ‘It’s almost melted,’ Ruby observed. ‘Won’t the children eat it?’

  ‘I think they’re a bit too full of cake,’ said Jim.

  ‘Would the monkey like to finish it off?’ asked Lena.

  ‘I reckon so,’ said Jim.

  Jim headed for his wheelchair, to lean over the back, and Lena rewrapped the ice cream and put it on the seat.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jim matter-of-factly. ‘See you presently, Ruby.’

  Back in their own kitchen, Biscuit competed with the monkey for a lick of ice cream. When they’d had their fill, Jim began to screw up the newspaper, but dropped one sheet. When he picked it up, something caught his eye. Lowering himself onto the chair, he let his breath out slowly as he read the article from Tit-Bits magazine.

  Park Crescent was built in the eighteenth century. It was a series of houses arranged in a serpentine shape, after the fashion of the Georgian crescents in Bath, although not nearly as splendid. When it was built, the houses in Park Crescent would have overlooked farmland, with an unimpeded view stretching as far as the parish churches of Tarring and Goring. There were fourteen houses altogether, accessed through a triumphal arch on the corner of Richmond Road and Crescent Road. Designed to be used by carriages, the arch was supported by the carved heads of four bearded men. On either side of the main arch was a smaller one for pedestrians, and at either end of the crescent were two Swiss cottages. Effie and Gus Rhodes lived in the south cottage.

  The British League of Women was designed to rival the Townswomen’s Guild and the Women’s Institute. It was intended to embrace the ideals of similar organizations that she’d taken part in, in Cameroon, promoting and celebrating all that was good about British women. Effie told her hand-picked guests that it would be a sisterhood of wives, mothers and decent women who would put back the ‘great’ into Great Britain. Of course she hadn’t dreamed that up on her own. Using various manifestos, she had cobbled together a form of words that she believed would be most attractive. Gus had made himself scarce and was upstairs with his model train set. He was trying out the new engine and it was brilliant. It had cost him an arm and a leg, but the chap who’d made it was a master craftsman.

  As the meeting began, there were ten women squeezed into Effie
’s drawing room. With the exception of Freda Fosdyke, who was taking the minutes of the meeting, they all sat with cup and saucer in hand, waiting to hear what their hostess had to say.

  ‘As you know,’ Effie began, ‘there are a great many new organizations springing up, but only the British League of Women will give the women of this country a sense of belonging and patriotism. We shall lead the way and be a beacon in these dark times.’

  ‘Yes, but what will we actually do?’ Miss Taylor asked. ‘I mean to say, what makes this different from church groups or the WI?’

  Effie’s eyes narrowed. She was unsure of Lydia Taylor. She had been part of the committee of the Townswomen’s Guild, but Effie had never really got to know her. She’d been loyal to the organization and done everything she was required to do, but she asked awkward questions. Effie flicked an imaginary crumb from her dress. How was she to answer that?

  ‘My neighbour says you’re part of the British Union of Fascists,’ said a voice at the back of the room.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Effie declared. ‘I am my own woman and answerable to no one, but that’s not to say we won’t listen to their point of view.’ She took a deep breath. ‘We need to educate women. Win over their hearts and minds. But how can we possibly do that if we don’t have the full facts?’

  She looked around. Every eye was riveted on her. True, she hadn’t really thought it through, but this was the answer to that question. Let the WI and the TWG have their silly sewing lessons and their cookery books; she would make her mark in society by being an educator of women. She would show them that there was more to life than having babies.

  ‘As you know, we are spoon-fed by what the government wants us to hear,’ she told her starry-eyed followers. ‘Hitler is no threat to this country. He wants peace, and yet the whole country is getting geared up for war.’

  ‘Some say he’s deluded,’ said another voice.

  ‘This is neither the time nor the place to worry about that,’ said Effie. ‘What we are about is making our country the best in the world.’

  No one spoke.

  ‘The truth of the matter is,’ Effie went on, ‘we women tend to do what our husbands do, or say what other people say. We never get the chance to form our own opinions.’

  There was a hum of approval.

  ‘I may be wrong about what I’ve just said,’ Effie went on, confident that her assembled guests would disagree, ‘but unless we have all the facts at our disposal, how are we to know what to think?’

  ‘Yes, but what are we going to do about it,’ Lydia wanted to know.

  ‘We shall do everything to promote peace,’ said Effie. ‘We shall study and educate other women. We shall convince our men that war is futile, and promote exchanges between the nations.’

  She sat back down in a warm glow. The ladies talked among themselves, and by the end of the meeting they had co-opted various people to form a committee and the names of several speakers had already been suggested.

  After the main meeting broke up, Effie was left with the chosen few. Although she had protested modestly that she was ill equipped for leadership, she had been voted in as chairman, with Freda Fosdyke as the secretary and Cynthia Raymond as the treasurer.

  ‘It feels a bit like old times,’ Effie quipped as she offered them each a sherry.

  ‘I felt quite sure the TWG would fold when you went,’ said Cynthia. ‘Rose Wilmot runs it now. They meet in the Oddfellows’ Hall.’

  ‘Bea Quinn left the committee,’ said Freda, ‘but she still attends the meetings.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ said Effie dismissively. ‘I know I shouldn’t say this, but she’s a sly, conniving bitch. I can’t believe I befriended her! Did you know, I even invited her to dinner in my house. I thought she was all right until . . . Well, look at the way she treated me.’

  ‘If you ask me,’ said Cynthia, ‘the whole family are nothing but troublemakers.’

  ‘Dr Quinn seems all right,’ said Freda with a puzzled expression.

  ‘I don’t mean him,’ said Cynthia. ‘Have you read the letters in the paper just lately? The ones from that “Worthing Worthy”?’

  ‘I can’t say I have a lot of time to pay that much attention to the paper, dear,’ said Effie languidly.

  ‘Well,’ said Cynthia, ‘there’s a whole article about do-gooders who are trying to make a name for themselves, and he’s got half the town at loggerheads with the other half, over what’s happening in Germany.’

  Effie turned to Freda. ‘Have you seen it?’ she asked innocently.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Freda, sipping her sherry. ‘There’s quite a lively debate going on about the pros and cons of Hitler’s intentions, and whether we’ve laid ourselves open to invasion by being too trusting.’

  ‘So who is this mysterious letter-writer?’ Effie wanted to know. ‘In my day,’ she went on, ‘if you believed passionately in something, you didn’t hide behind anonymity. You had the courage to stand up and say so in the open.’

  ‘I have a shrewd idea who he is,’ said Cynthia smugly.

  ‘You do?’ said Freda.

  ‘A little slip of the pen,’ said Cynthia, clearly enjoying the air of mystery.

  ‘Well, come on then,’ Effie demanded. ‘Don’t keep us all in suspense.’

  ‘It’s Jim Searle,’ said Cynthia.

  Effie looked at Freda, but was none the wiser.

  ‘He’s that chap who got injured at the BUF rally a few years ago,’ said Cynthia.

  ‘Yes, I know who you mean,’ Freda replied, ‘but I thought he called himself by another name.’

  ‘“Concerned of Worthing”,’ Cynthia prompted. She held up her fingers and checked off the various aliases as she recalled them: ‘“Concerned of Worthing”, “The way I see it”, “Worthing Worthy” – it’s all the same person.’

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Freda.

  ‘He mentioned that his wife gave some German refugees a book about living in this country,’ said Cynthia. ‘I’ve seen it. Lottie Langland’s maid has one.’

  ‘So?’ Effie challenged.

  ‘She was brought here by the Deborah Committee,’ said Cynthia, ‘and, when she arrived, she stayed in Jim Searle’s guest house in Heene Road.’

  ‘I still don’t . . .’ Effie began.

  ‘Jim Searle is Bea Quinn’s son-in-law,’ said Freda.

  Effie’s nostrils flared slightly. ‘I think you’re right, dear. The whole ruddy family are nothing but troublemakers.’

  CHAPTER 23

  Rachel had found Rivka another position, this time in Sompting, which was only about three miles away. She was to be the maid for two elderly spinsters. For more than thirty years Estelle Martin had taught students to be teachers in Uganda, with the African Inland Mission, and Constance had worked as a Bible translator. They lived simply and had a reputation for being gentle and caring members of their church community. Now not so robust, they needed someone to help with their day-to-day life, but were still alert and enthusiastic.

  When Ruby and Rivka arrived, they found a pretty cottage overlooking farmland in the middle of the village. It wasn’t a large place, so straight away they could see that the work wouldn’t be too hard. Having been shown around the cottage, Ruby and Rivka sat in the neat little sitting room and had tea.

  It had taken Rivka a whole month to recover. Her outward wounds healed quite quickly, but Ruby could see that the mental scars would take a lot longer. She was jumpy around men, even Jim.

  ‘You should try and talk about it,’ Ruby had said one evening, as she and Rivka sat alone in the kitchen. Jim hadn’t been feeling too well and had gone to bed early.

  Rivka shook her head vehemently. ‘I don’t even want to think about that dog, but,’ she touched her head, ‘he is in here all the time.’

  ‘That’s why you should talk,’ Ruby insisted.

  ‘One day I shall have revenge,’ Rivka spat.

  ‘That’s the one thing you must never do,’ Ruby c
autioned.

  Rivka tapped her nose. ‘They talk. I look straight-face. They think I nicht understand, but I do. I know.’

  ‘If you tell the police,’ Ruby tried again, ‘we may be able to stop him doing it again.’

  Rivka shuddered visibly. ‘Who believes a German Jew?’

  Ruby had said nothing, but she had to admit to herself that Rivka was probably right. Rachel had said that when Mrs Hobden had been confronted with what had happened, she had called Rivka a cheap little tramp and a liar.

  ‘How dare you come here with your filthy lies!’ she’d screamed at Mrs Whichelow from the Deborah Committee. ‘We are respectable people.’

  Mrs Hobden had even gone on to complain that, by walking out, Rivka had left her in the lurch. ‘There was no reason why the girl needed to go,’ she’d insisted, ‘and in view of the fact that I have been badly let down, I’m withholding her wages, in lieu of the inconvenience she’s caused.’ When she got back to Worthing, Rachel had told Ruby that the whole thing had left Mrs Whichelow with a bad taste in her mouth.

  After they’d all had tea and a little chat, the sisters agreed a fair wage and promised to give Rivka a day off every week, with one weekend off every six weeks. Ruby immediately invited her to come back to the guest house whenever she wanted. It seemed a much better arrangement and, by the time she left, Rivka had tears in her eyes, but Ruby knew she would be well looked after.

  ‘You mean they changed the notes with no trouble?’ Edith was surprised that the man who had bought Bernard’s model engine hadn’t made a fuss when Bernard took the forgeries back. ‘Did he know who gave them to him?’

  ‘If he did, he didn’t say,’ said Bernard.

  ‘I wish I hadn’t given Jim the other one now,’ said Edith. ‘I didn’t mean to. It was stuffed in with the rent book. I just didn’t think. If you’d had it with you, he might have replaced that one too.’