by Annie Groves
‘Oh, I’m so pleased,’ Olive told him. ‘You’ve got just the right way with him, I think, and a boy like that needs that.’
‘Well, I don’t mind admitting to you that I’ve taken a bit of a liking to him. He’s got spirit and brains, even though he uses them for the wrong things at times. The lad’s never had what you’d call a proper home, by all accounts, and I reckon that now he knows that his dad will be able to find him, he’ll settle down a treat.
‘He’ll be coming home with me when I come off duty tomorrow morning. I’ve managed to persuade Mrs Dawson to let me put up a bit of a Christmas tree for him. There’s all our lad’s books and toys up in the attic still, but, well, naturally Mrs Dawson doesn’t like anyone touching his things, so I was glad of young Drew’s offer of the extra toys he’d got just in case there were more children at the party than expected. A nice lad, he is. The right sort and no mistake.’
‘I’m very pleased for you and Mrs Dawson, Sergeant,’ Olive said as they reached number 1.
‘It will do us both good. Perhaps breathe new life into the house and into us, having a lad around again. Not that young Barney is anything like our lad was, of course.’
‘Of course not,’ Olive agreed, understanding everything that the sergeant hadn’t said as well as everything that he had.
If she was surprised that Mrs Dawson seemed so ready to accept Barney then she certainly wasn’t going to say so to Sergeant Dawson and risk putting a shadow over his obvious happiness. She wasn’t Nancy with her acid comments, after all. Even so, she had to admit that she did have some misgivings about how it would all work out, given that Mrs Dawson had shut herself away from them all. But no, it was Christmas Day, a time for hope and belief and joy, not a time for doubt.
‘Happy Christmas, Sergeant,’ Olive smiled.
‘Happy Christmas, Mrs Robbins,’ he returned, and they exchanged smiles before Olive herded her group of young people together, urging them towards number 13.
‘I’m sorry about the doll and the pram, Ted,’ Agnes whispered humbly as they walked together.
‘It’s not your fault.’
‘Yes it is. I was the one who told Tilly about the girls wanting them.’
‘No, Agnes. That isn’t what I meant. What I meant is that it’s my fault that I couldn’t go to ruddy Harrods and buy them for them myself, just like I can’t afford to rent a better place for them and Mum, and like I can’t afford to give you a proper engagement ring.’
‘You are giving me a proper ring,’ Agnes protested emotionally. ‘I won’t have you saying any different. You’re giving me the only ring I want. Drew didn’t mean any harm,’ she told him, sensing his anger softening a little. ‘Tilly just told me that he asked his mum to send over some second-hand toys but she and her friends sent money instead, ’cos they feel guilty that we’re at war and they aren’t.’
‘When I saw that kid’s face when he unwrapped his train . . .’ Ted shook his head. ‘Always wanted an engine like that meself, I did. Of course, it was out of the question. That lad will never forget this Christmas and getting that train. I suppose I’m just feeling out of sorts because I wanted to be the one to give the girls their dolly and pram,’ he confessed reluctantly. ‘Makes me feel like a poor kind of brother not to be able to get them the Christmas present they wanted. They don’t ask for much, after all.’
‘Ted, you are the very best kind of brother, and when they grow up, it won’t be the dolly and the pram they remember, it will be the love you’ve given them and the hard work you’ve put into keeping your family together. There’s nothing more important than family, and knowing . . . knowing that you’re part of one.’
Hearing the sadness in her voice, Ted pulled her closer to him. ‘You have got a family, Agnes. Don’t you fret about that.’
‘I don’t think your mother likes me very much.’
Agnes was aghast at what she’d let slip out. Now Ted would be cross again.
But instead he simply pulled her even closer. ‘Ma isn’t always the easiest person to get along with. It’s on account of her losing Dad and worrying about losing the flat, and everything. But don’t you ever think that you don’t come first with me, Agnes, or that I don’t know how lucky I am to have you.’
Their quick awkward kiss snatched in the darkness might not have seemed romantic to anyone else but to Agnes it meant everything when she added it to what Ted had just said to her.
Everything was going to be all right. In fact, everything was going to be perfect.
In Ian Simpson’s front room, Sally smiled as she looked down into George’s sleeping face. As though he was conscious of her concentration on him, even in his sleep, he stirred and then opened his eyes, exclaiming in a confused voice, ‘Sally?’ and then groaning as he sat up and apologised, ‘I fell asleep, didn’t I? I’m sorry. We’d better get off to this party, hadn’t we?’
‘It’s a bit too late for that,’ Sally laughed. ‘It’s just gone midnight.’
When George looked even more abashed she told him softly, ‘It isn’t too late for this, though, or too early. In fact it’s exactly the right time. Happy Christmas, my dearest darling George,’ she told him. And then she kissed him.
It was a good ten minutes before they spoke again, George’s voice soft with love as he warned her, ‘This isn’t a good idea, you and me with the house to ourselves.’
‘I don’t think we’ll have it to ourselves for very much longer. The others will probably be back soon. Mind you, we ought really to go to number 13 and toast Ted and Agnes’s engagement.’
‘You should have woken me up earlier.’
‘I didn’t have the heart. You looked exhausted. You were fast asleep almost before you sat down,’ Sally laughed as he helped her on with her coat and they headed for the front door.
In the front room of number 13, Ted dropped down on one knee in front of Agnes the minute Olive had shown them in and closed the door, leaving them alone together.
Overwhelmed by such a romantic gesture, Agnes put her hands to her flushed face and whispered his name.
His hand trembling slightly, Ted removed the jeweller’s box from his trouser pocket and opened it, saying gruffly, ‘Agnes, will you do me the honour of—’
‘Oh, yes, yes, Ted, I will,’ Agnes breathed ecstatically, not allowing him to finish, but holding out her left hand instead so that Ted could slip the ring – ‘her’ ring – onto her finger.
Looking down at his downbent head with its mousy hair, Agnes felt a rush of love and pride. She was surely the luckiest girl in London tonight. She certainly felt as though she was.
Ted was getting to his feet, dusting down the knees of his trousers, even though, thanks to Olive’s excellent housekeeping, there wasn’t a speck of carpet fluff on them.
‘That’s that done then,’ Ted announced in a relieved and satisfied voice, before planting a smacker of a kiss on Agnes’s mouth. ‘It’s official now. You and me, we’re engaged.’
‘Yes.’ Agnes felt dizzy with delight.
Someone was knocking on the door, and then it opened to reveal Olive standing there with a tray of glasses of sherry, with Tilly, Dulcie and Sally crowded behind her.
‘Can we come in?’ That was Tilly.
‘Let me see the ring,’ Dulcie was demanding.
‘Agnes, you look so happy.’ Sally’s smile was calming and kind.
‘Congratulations, Ted. We wish you both every happiness,’ Olive announced, putting down the tray so that she could join the girls, who were all admiring Agnes’s ring.
The diamond was so small but very pretty, Olive thought, relieved that Dulcie for once had been tactful enough not to make the kind of Dulcie comment that could have hurt Ted’s pride and marred Agnes’s obvious joy. Watching Agnes reminded her so much of her own engagement, which had been here in this very house and in this very room, with her husband’s mother pursing her lips and looking rather critically at her.
‘To Ted and Agnes,’ Olive toas
ted once everyone had got a glass of sherry.
‘Ted and Agnes,’ everyone echoed. Then it was back to the kitchen for mince pies, warm from the bottom of the oven where Olive had slipped them, somehow managing to find room, despite the fact that the oven was almost filled by the turkey she’d put in when they had come back from church.
Watching Agnes finger her ring, a look of dreamy delight in her eyes, Tilly had to fight the temptation to touch Drew’s ring, where it hung from its chain concealed beneath her clothes.
George reached for Sally’s hand. If he’d had his way they’d have been celebrating their own engagement tonight, but of course Sally, being the wonderful caring person that she was, hadn’t wanted to steal Agnes’s limelight.
Never one to enjoy someone else being in the limelight, Dulcie seized the opportunity to open Wilder’s present to her. It was, after all, after midnight and Christmas Day. A satisfied smile curved her lips when she opened the gift-wrapped box to find inside it a shiny gold compact with a D picked out on it in sparkling brilliants. Inside, the compact had two compartments and a pretty swansdown powder puff. There was a lipstick case to go with it in exactly the same design. Dulcie, who knew exactly how much such luxuries cost, preened as she gave Wilder an approving smile. Hers would be the most expensive present any of them received, and it was only right that that should be the case. After all, she was the prettiest of all of them.
She bestowed another smile on Wilder as a reward for his generosity.
‘Happy Christmas, everyone,’ Drew toasted them all with the remains of his sherry.
‘Happy Christmas,’ they all chorused back, whilst Tilly gathered the girls together and whispered, ‘Let’s give the boys their stockings now, shall we?’
Dulcie rolled her eyes. Privately she had thought Tilly was being a bit babyish when she had first suggested that they should fill the stockings she had bought from the market with silly bits of nothing, but when Sally had laughed and nodded her head and Agnes had gone all soft and damp-eyed with emotion, Dulcie, not wanting to be the odd one out, had felt obliged to go along with Tilly’s plan.
It was Sally who volunteered to go upstairs and collect the stockings. She smiled tenderly to herself as she picked up George’s. Some things were beyond price, and now, in the privacy of her room, she used up a whole sheet of her precious writing paper to write: ‘To the man I love – I promise to visit you every time I have enough time off,’ and then adding several kisses and signing it, before folding it and placing it into a matching envelope, which she carefully sealed, writing George’s name on the front. She tucked the envelope as far down the stocking as she could amongst the other small gifts she had gathered: a book of poems, all penned by New Zealanders, she’d found in a second-hand bookshop; one of the packs of cards Tilly had generously shared with everyone, two sticks of liquorice – George’s favourite sweet treat – and, of course, the obligatory handknitted socks, nice and thick to warm his poor aching feet, along with one of Olive’s carefully hoarded apples.
Although she had been as quick as she could, Tilly was hopping impatiently from foot to foot by the time Sally returned downstairs, her arms piled high with the four well-stuffed stockings.
Witnessing the look of barely suppressed excitement and anticipation on Tilly’s face, Olive’s heart filled with a mixture of love and nostalgia. In her heart Tilly was still her little girl, the little girl she had filled so many Christmas stockings for, and yet the reality was that Tilly was now a young woman, carrying on one of the traditions Olive had created so lovingly for her. Gripped by the maternal ache of her own emotions when Drew was the first of the young men to step forward – a twinkle in his eye and an expression on his face that said that not only did he understand his role but also that he was fully prepared to play it – Olive was torn between gratitude for the fact that Tilly was involved with a young man who so obviously thought a great deal of her, and anxiety over the growing strength of feelings she suspected that Tilly and Drew had for one another.
‘What’s this?’ Drew demanded, giving Tilly a teasing look as she took his stocking from Sally and started to hand it to him.
‘It’s from Father Christmas,’ Tilly told him, trying to keep her face straight, ‘but you can only have it if you’ve been good.’
The sound of Drew and Tilly’s laughter as they mock-wrestled with the stocking had the three other young men coming forward so that they too could receive their stockings.
Whilst Dulcie’s manner was studiedly off hand and ‘grown up’ as she handed Wilder his, when he discovered the pack of cards tucked inside it and immediately started to shuffle them, acknowledging that they were ‘a real nice pack’, she immediately dropped her pose and told him firmly, ‘I knew you’d like them.’
‘Liquorice?’ George smiled at Sally. ‘My favourite.’ But it was the look in his eyes as he read the special note she had written for him that said what he was really feeling, and the touch of his hand as he reached for and squeezed hers.
‘We always have Christmas stockings at home. It’s one of our traditions.’
‘And now it will be one of ours,’ Sally promised him. One day, one Christmas, please God, a long time from now, when their own children were old enough to understand, they would gather round their own fireplace and she would tell them about the first Christmas she had shared with their father. But not perhaps about the note she had written for him. Some things were too special and private ever to be shared with anyone else.
The second Christmas of the war, Olive thought painfully. Twelve months in which there had been so much to bear and so many lives lost: Dunkirk, with those poor young men coming back looking so beaten and defeated; the Battle for Britain, when the country had held its breath, knowing that only the skill of the few stood between them and German invasion, and then the start of the Blitz.
How much more destruction and death would the coming year bring?
‘Mum, can I have another mince pie. Please?’
Automatically Olive switched her thoughts from her private anxiety to the reality of the present. Her home was filled with young people who were safe and well and happy, and that surely was worth celebrating and worth being thankful for. A true Christmas gift to be appreciated and welcomed. The very best of Christmas gifts in fact.
Acknowledgements
Susan Opie, and Victoria Hughes-Williams, my editors at HarperCollins.
Yvonne Holland, copy editor extraordinaire, who, as always, has done a magnificent job.
All those at HarperCollins whose hard work enabled this book to reach publication.
Tony, who contributed so much to my books via the research he did for me.
About the Author
Annie Groves lives in the North-West of England and has done so all her life. She is the author of Ellie Pride, Connie’s Courage and Hettie of Hope Street, a series of novels for which she drew upon her own family’s history, picked up from listening to her grandmother’s stories when she was a child. Her most recent novels are Goodnight Sweetheart, Some Sunny Day, The Grafton Girls, As Time Goes By, Across the Mersey, Daughters of Liverpool, The Heart of the Family, Where the Heart Is and When the Lights Go on Again, which are based on recollections from members of her family who come from the city of Liverpool. Home for Christmas follows on from London Belles and is the second in this new series, which introduces a set of glorious characters that live in London. Her website, www.anniegroves.co.uk has further details.
Annie Groves also writes under the name Penny Jordan, and is an internationally bestselling author of over 170 novels with sales of over 84,000,000 copies.
Also by Annie Groves
The Pride family series
Ellie Pride
Connie’s Courage
Hettie of Hope Street
The WWII series
Goodnight Sweetheart
Some Sunny Day
The Grafton Girls
As Time Goes By
The Campion series
Across the Mersey
Daughters of Liverpool
The Heart of the Family
Where the Heart Is
When the Lights Go on Again
The Article Row series
London Belles
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Harper
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This paperback edition 2011
1
Copyright © Annie Groves 2011
Annie Groves asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-00-736151-9
EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780007419395
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