Hettie of Hope Street

by Groves, Annie

  Hettie, misunderstanding his silence, thought it came from his dislike of the fact that she should be there.

  Hettie tiptoed into the nursery, gently pushing open the door. It was hard to believe she had been here for three days already, they had passed so quickly. Hannah was still asleep. Hettie smiled tiredly at the sleeping baby. At least she was thriving, unlike Ellie who had been so poorly the previous evening that the nurse had urged Gideon to send for the doctor.

  Childbed fever was notoriously hard to treat, Dr Barnes had told them sombrely, and there was nothing they could do but wait.

  Tiredly Hettie lifted her hand and rubbed her eyes, then frowned as she felt the crackle of paper in her apron pocket. Reaching into the pocket she removed the letter. It had arrived this morning and she had recognised Jay’s handwriting the minute Gideon handed it to her.

  She waited until she was alone in the nursery before opening and reading it. He was, Jay had written, prepared to give her one more chance. She was to meet him in Southampton and he had enclosed a rail ticket for her.

  ‘Think of what you are throwing away, Hettie,’ he had written. ‘Think of what you are denying us both, and for what?’

  Hannah gave a sleepy murmur. She was not due to have a feed for another two hours, and Hettie was hoping that she would continue to sleep so that she could go and sit with Ellie and thus relieve the nurse.

  She heard someone opening the bedroom door and immediately swung round, a warning finger to her lips, expecting to see Gideon but instead it was John who stood there.

  ‘I have come to say goodbye. I am returning to Oxfordshire this morning,’ he told her distantly.

  Hettie nodded, unaware that she had dropped her letter until John bent down and picked it up.

  ‘It can’t be long before you leave for New York,’ he commented.

  Hettie looked away from him. ‘I was, but I’m not going now. I’ve changed my mind.’

  John looked at her. ‘Hettie…’

  ‘I can’t go,’ she told him passionately. ‘I can’t leave Mam and the baby. Not when they need me…You must see that?’

  ‘Hettie…’

  She had no time to be either shocked or surprised – one minute John was standing in front of her the next he was holding her fiercely in his arms, and he was kissing her.

  John was kissing her.

  Hettie closed her eyes and clung tightly to him, returning his kiss with all the passion locked in her heart.

  ‘I’m sorry, Hettie, I shouldn’t have done that.’

  Hettie forced herself to smile but inwardly she felt more like crying. These last few days had shown her so clearly just how very deep her true feelings for John actually were. ‘That is twice now that you have apologised to me for kissing me, John,’ she reminded him unevenly. ‘But truly there is no need. After all, it is not as though…’

  ‘Not as though what, Hettie?’ John asked her with a frown.

  Hettie sighed and moved away from him. ‘I just wish that I did not always make you so cross.’

  ‘You make me cross?’ John repeated, looking bewildered. ‘Hettie, I could never be cross with you.’

  Hettie couldn’t help but laugh. ‘John, that is such a fib,’ she teased him. ‘Remember how cross with me you were when I first went to Liverpool to sing at the Adelphi?’

  ‘Aye, I was a right fool then,’ John acknowledged gruffly.

  ‘You disapproved of my singing and you disapproved of my new dress and I was so upset about that, John, because I’d been looking forward to showing off my dress to you.’

  ‘You looked a fair treat in it, Hettie, but I were that jealous knowing that other men ’ud be seeing you in it that I couldn’t stop meself from saying what I did. I didn’t mean to hurt you, lass, and I’m right sorry that I did.’

  I was hurt, Hettie admitted softly to herself. ‘You were my best friend, John, my very best friend,’ she emphasised. ‘I loved you so much.’

  ‘I loved you an’ all, Hettie,’ John admitted. ‘But it were not as a friend that I loved you,’ he told her meaningfully.

  The colour came and went in Hettie’s face, but she managed a small emotional smile. She had given up hope that she would ever be able to talk to John like this – as openly and as honestly as she had done as a child. And yet here they were doing just that, and all because of a kiss.

  ‘I felt so grown up in that dress and I desperately wanted you to tell me that I looked grown up,’ she admitted. ‘I felt that hurt and upset when you didn’t, but John what hurt me even more was when you didn’t come to hear me sing.’

  Even now the memory of those feelings filled her eyes with tears.

  ‘Oh, Hettie,’ John groaned, reaching for her hand and giving it an apologetic squeeze before releasing it again.

  ‘You didn’t even write to me to say that you were sorry or to explain why you weren’t there, not even though I had written to you. And all Mam and Da would say when I got upset was that you must have been too busy.’

  Now the tears were rolling slowly down her face as she relived her pain.

  ‘Hettie,’ John repeated pleadingly in the kind of deep gruff voice she had heard leading male actors use to convey intense emotion, but somehow that particular note in John’s voice affected her in a way that theirs had not. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you,’ he told her thickly. ‘In fact,’ Hettie watched as he took a deep breath. ‘Hettie let’s go for a walk. I…I need to talk to you and…’

  There was so much emotion and urgency in his voice that Hettie felt her heart beat extra fast in response to it.

  She looked hesitantly towards the crib where Hannah was fast asleep and, as though John had sensed her reluctance to leave the baby, he pressed fiercely, ‘Hannah will not even know you have been gone, I promise. We could just walk through the park and then down to the river, just for half an hour, Hettie. Please?’

  ‘I was going to go and sit with Mam.’

  ‘Gideon will do that. Unless, of course, I am pressing you to do something you do not want to do, Hettie, and if that is the case then…’

  ‘No,’ she assured him quickly. ‘No. I would like to go with you for a walk, John.’

  Try as she might she could not stop a delicate pink blush from warming her face, Everyone in Preston knew that when a lad asked you to walk in the park with him of an evening it was as good as saying he wanted to walk with you permanently.

  ‘I’ll just have to warn Mrs Jennings that I’m going out and ask her to keep an eye on Hannah. I wouldn’t want her to wake up on her own,’ she warned John, but she could see from the way he was smiling at her that he knew he had won her over.

  The summer evening was light and warm, but Hettie still enjoyed the way John fussed over her, asking if she would need a coat in case she might feel cold. The sun had dropped low enough in the sky to throw long golden shadows across the square as they walked side by side towards the park as they had done so many times in years gone by. Then, though, she would probably have hopped or skipped at John’s side, or even tucked her arm through his, Hettie recognised as they entered the park.

  As though he had actually been thinking the same thoughts, John announced, ‘You had best take my arm now, Hettie, for it is a steep walk from here down to the river and I would not want you to fall.’

  ‘I often think of our park here in Preston when I am in Hyde Park in London,’ Hettie told him as she slipped her arm through his. ‘And I have to say that I prefer our own dear Aveham Park.’

  ‘Aye, it’s a fine park indeed,’ John agreed before saying abruptly, ‘Hettie, there was a reason why I did not – could not – attend your first singing performance at the Adelphi Hotel. But I asked Ellie and Gideon not to speak of it to you.’

  They were walking downhill and Hettie was tempted to stop and demand to know what he meant, but she sensed that John felt more comfortable talking to her as they walked and so she waited as patiently as she could.

  ‘I didn’t want you to be upset,
you see, Hettie, and that was why – well, to tell the truth I was in such a state myself at the time that…’

  ‘What happened? What was it?’ Hettie asked him.

  ‘A most dreadful thing, Hettie,’ John answered her sombrely. ‘A terrible, terrible accident. One of my pupils at the flying school ignored my instructions and took up a flying machine even though he was not experienced enough to do so. He had three other young men with him…I was on my way to…to come to Liverpool when I saw…’

  Sensing his distress as he brushed his free hand across his eyes Hettie automatically squeezed his arm comfortingly but kept silent.

  ‘The flying machine crashed into the buildings at the airfield. Jim was inside them.’

  ‘Jim?’ Hettie’s voice betrayed her shocked distress.

  ‘They were all killed, all of them, the four young men and Jim.’

  ‘Oh John.’

  ‘I didn’t want you to know because I didn’t want to cast a shadow over your excitement or your memory of something I knew was so special to you, Hettie. I’m sorry if I did the wrong thing, and caused you pain.’

  ‘Oh John,’ Hettie repeated even more emotionally. ‘How generous of you to want to spare me. I was such a silly, selfish child then.’

  ‘You have never been selfish, Hettie.’

  ‘Yes I have,’ she corrected him ruefully. ‘But I hope I have learned to become wiser now, John. Poor you, I know how close you were to Jim. And poor Jim and those boys, too.’

  They had reached the river and although they were now on level ground John still kept her arm tucked through his, and Hettie didn’t make any move to remove it.

  It felt so right to be here with John like this. So very, very right, as though it and he were something she had been travelling towards all her life, she recognised emotionally.

  ‘There is so much I want to tell you, Hettie.’

  ‘And I you, John.’

  ‘Can you forgive me?’

  ‘For kissing me?’ She couldn’t resist teasing him.

  There was a very purposeful male glint in his eyes when he looked back at her.

  ‘If you do,’ he warned her, ‘then I may very well be tempted to do so again.’

  ‘Well, in that case I may very well be tempted to forgive you,’ Hettie said softly.

  THIRTY-TWO

  ‘Here you are, Mam.’

  Deftly and expertly Hettie transferred three-month-old Hannah from her own arms and into Ellie’s, pausing to smooth down the baby’s thick dark curls and smile at her before moving to plump up Ellie’s pillows.

  ‘Oh Hettie, what would we do without you?’ Elle smiled appreciatively as she cradled Hannah in the crook of her arm and reached out to squeeze Hettie’s hand lovingly. ‘Oh look.’ She laughed. ‘See how Hannah looks to you.’

  ‘She will start to look to you now that you are well enough to take care of her, Mam,’ Hettie said gently.

  They had come so close to losing Ellie that even now Hettie hardly dared to so much as think about those first two weeks after her return home. She had been so afraid that Ellie might slip away from them and equally determined to stop her that she had taken to spending most of her time sitting in a chair in Ellie and Gideon’s room, watching her step-mother and willing her not to die, Hannah in her crib beside her so that she could tend to the new baby as well as watch over Ellie.

  Gideon, and John too during his increasingly frequent visits home, had gently chided Hettie and urged her to remember how much the whole household was depending on her and how important it was that she keep up her own strength. But Hettie had ignored them.

  Some deep instinct she could feel but not explain had driven her to keep up her bedside vigil, and to keep telling Ellie how much they all needed her.

  The night Ellie’s fever had been at its height, and Dr Barnes had been and told them gravely that there was nothing more he could do, Hettie had laid Hannah in Ellie’s unrecognising arms and whispered fiercely to her to remember that she had a baby who needed her.

  ‘You didn’t leave me, Mam, and you mustn’t leave this little one either. She needs you and I need you too. We all need you…’

  In the morning, when Ellie’s fever had broken, Dr Barnes had declared that it was a miracle.

  And now, although she was still a little weak, Ellie was out of danger and well on the way to full recovery.

  ‘Hannah doesn’t look like either of the boys,’ Hettie commented, ‘and she doesn’t really look like you or Gideon either.’

  Ellie smiled tenderly as she stroked her new daughter’s curls.

  ‘She has my father’s hair, Hettie, and his eyes, and in that way looks very much as John did as a baby. But this pretty olive-tinted skin is, I think, a gift from Gideon’s father, Richard. I am so blessed in having two very beautiful daughters. But Hannah is most blessed of all in having such a loving sister.’

  Hettie felt emotional tears pricking at her eyes. ‘I had been so afraid that I would be jealous of her because she was yours and I was not, but Mam the moment I looked at her, I felt…I knew here inside, I just loved her so much.’

  ‘That was exactly how I felt with you, Hettie,’ Ellie told her. ‘This is such a very special gift that we have, Hettie, this love between us, mother to daughter and sister to sister. Hannah would have died without you to love and cherish her, and so would I…’

  ‘Just as I would have died without you to love and cherish me,’ Hettie reminded Ellie.

  ‘You are the daughter of my heart, Hettie. I can’t bear to think of you leaving us and going back to London.’

  Hettie pulled her hand free of Ellie’s and stood up. ‘I have decided not to return to London but to stay here in Preston.’

  Joy flooded Ellie’s expression quickly followed by concern.

  ‘But Hettie, love, your singing? I know how much that means to you now, even if I did not do so before.’

  ‘Things change, Mam. Or maybe it is me who has changed. My singing, the stage, those things that once seemed so exciting and important…’ Hettie shook her head whilst images formed inside it. Babs turning her back on the stage because she wanted to be with Stan. Mary, white-faced with despair when she told Hettie what had befallen her. Eddie’s hand cold in her own.

  ‘I can sing anywhere, Mam, but I cannot be with my family anywhere…’

  Ellie looked at her. ‘Hettie, I don’t mean to pry, or cause you pain, but you wrote so often of a certain someone that I had felt…’

  ‘I did think I had fallen in love with Jay, Mam,’ Hettie agreed quietly. ‘But he already had a wife.’ She sighed and then smiled. ‘He wanted to make me a big star and for a while I thought that that was what I wanted too. But even if he had not been married, even if he had wanted to marry me.’ She paused and shook her head before continuing earnestly, ‘He couldn’t understand why I had to come home to be with you.’

  Hettie and Ellie looked at one another over Hannah’s head. Two women sharing knowledge and a love that did not need words or explanations.

  ‘I…I have been thinking about what I shall do,’ Hettie said quietly. ‘I have been speaking with Miss Brown and since she does not want to teach any more she has suggested I might want to take over her pupils.’

  ‘And you would want to do that?’

  ‘I have learned so much that I could teach them, Mam,’ Hettie replied eagerly. ‘It isn’t just the singing they need to learn, there’s the dancing as well, and so much more if they wish to become professionals. And there is opera too. I can’t teach it myself, but I could find a teacher who could.’

  Ellie shook her head and laughed fondly. ‘Such ambitious plans, Hettie,’ she teased her. ‘You are so much Gideon’s daughter.’

  Hettie laughed too. ‘I have told Da what I would like to do,’ she admitted, ‘and he says he will look out for some premises for me.’

  ‘Oh Hettie…Hettie. This is just such wonderful news. First John is to come back to Preston and now you are to stay here as well.�
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  Hettie leaned forward to tickle Hannah’s chin, not wanting Ellie to see her betraying blush.

  It wasn’t because of John that she had conceived her plan for starting up a school for singers and dancers, she assured herself, even if her heart had given a fierce thrilling thud of excitement the day John had told her that he had decided to come home.

  Their shared concern over Ellie’s illness had brought a closeness between them that Hettie could never have imagined them sharing six months ago. Those long bleak hours of watching and waiting that John had insisted on sharing with her whenever he had been home had led to them exchanging the kind of confidence Hettie would once have thought impossible.

  They were equals now, and John had recognised that fact. They had talked about so much that once might have been impossible, and with an openness that had delighted Hettie.

  John had told her of his feelings at his friend’s death, and Hettie had wept as she talked of Eddie and his death.

  ‘I know many would condemn him for his…his way of life, but his love was as true as any other person’s, John, and I cannot help but ask myself if it is wrong that he should not have the right to have those feelings honoured. You do not agree with me, I can tell,’ she had whispered to him when he had looked at her in silence.

  He had reached for her hand then and said simply, ‘I have no right to sit in judgement of any other human being, Hettie. If I was silent it was simply because I felt humbled by your own compassion and wisdom.’

  They had gone on to talk of Mary, and of Lady Polly.

  ‘Did you love her?’ Hettie had forced herself to ask.

  ‘As a friend, yes. I felt for her, Hettie. She had such passion and so much to give. Do you love Jay Dalhousie?’ he had asked her in turn.

  ‘I thought I did. I wanted to. He made everything seem to be possible and so exciting, but there was nothing there underneath that excitement,’ she had told John sadly. ‘Jay couldn’t understand why I had to come home. And I could never love a man who did not understand that.’