Nightingale Wedding Bells

by Donna Douglas

  ‘It ain’t often you have a drink with a war hero, is it?’ Mr Hudson kept saying. ‘You enjoy it, boy. After all, you’ve earned it.’

  Anna had sat nursing her port and lemon for as long as she could. She had never liked drinking, and the heat and noise of the pub, with its stench of beer, stale sweat and cigarette smoke, was beginning to make her head ache.

  But when she had suggested that they should go home, the men wouldn’t hear of it.

  ‘It ain’t even midnight yet!’ Mr Wheeler said. ‘Let the lad see in the New Year!’

  ‘She just wants to show you who’s boss,’ Mr Hudson agreed. ‘Don’t fall for it, Edward lad, or you’ll be under the thumb forever!’

  ‘Leave the girl alone, it’s her wedding night.’ Mrs Hudson nudged Anna. She had been downing gins all night, matching her husband drink for drink, and now she was red-faced and slurring her words. ‘I expect you’ll be wanting to get him on his own, eh? Can’t say I blame you, good-looking man like him!’

  She couldn’t be more wrong, Anna thought as she brushed her hair over her shoulders. The thought of the wedding night and what was to come terrified her.

  She had little idea what to expect. Four years of nursing had taught her about male anatomy, and she knew how babies were born, but she had little idea how they got there. Even listening to the other girls’ chatter had barely given her any answers; for all their talk, they seemed as clueless as she was.

  Once again, Anna longed for her mother. She would have been able to tell her what to expect.

  She shivered inside her lace-trimmed nightgown. She felt a little foolish when she looked at her scared, pale face in the mirror. She had chosen the gown especially, but now it seemed too sophisticated for her. She looked like a little girl in her mother’s clothes.

  She picked up the bluebell brooch from the dressing table, admiring the way the coloured enamel caught the light as she turned it this way and that.

  ‘Something blue.’

  Anna turned around. Edward stood in the doorway, looking slightly dishevelled. His suit jacket was missing, the top buttons of his shirt were undone and his tie hung loosely about his neck. But he was still the most handsome man she had ever seen in her life.

  She smiled at him. ‘I didn’t hear you come in?’

  ‘I’m not surprised, all that racket going on outside.’

  Edward came over to stand behind her and slid his hands down her shoulders. His fingers felt warm through the thin silk.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said.

  ‘We’ve only been apart an hour!’

  ‘If I’d known you were sitting here looking this beautiful, I would have come home sooner.’ He bent down and nuzzled her neck. Anna squirmed with pleasure.

  ‘And there was me, thinking you were going to spend your wedding night with Mr Wheeler!’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to spend it with Mrs Wheeler, let alone her old man!’ His hands slid slowly down her bare arms, then slipped to cup her breasts. Her nipples hardened under the light graze of his thumbs.

  Anna felt herself melting inside with a sweet heat she had never experienced before. She turned to face Edward, entwining her arms around his neck, surrendering to his kiss.

  He pulled away from her, laughing. ‘Blimey, girl, hold your horses! Let me get undressed first.’

  Anna looked down, embarrassed, as Edward started to unbutton his shirt. Had she been too keen? she wondered. She had no idea what she was supposed to do.

  She turned away and put the bluebell brooch back in her jewellery box. All the while, she was aware of Edward behind her, taking off his shirt. Even the scars from the gas burns on his chest couldn’t mar the perfection of his body with broad, powerfully muscled shoulders tapering to narrow hips. His skin gleamed like gold in the lamplight.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen that brooch before. Where did you get it?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s from France.’

  Anna answered without thinking, her mind elsewhere. It was only when she looked up that she saw Edward’s frozen expression reflected in the mirror.

  ‘I don’t remember sending it to you.’ His voice was light, but his eyes were intent as they met hers in the mirror.

  It was too late to lie now. Besides, she had nothing to hide.

  ‘Tom sent it to me for Christmas.’

  ‘Tom?’ He bit out the word coldly. ‘Tom Franklin?’

  ‘I’ve been writing to him.’

  ‘Have you now?’ He tossed his shirt on to the floor. ‘And how long has this been going on?’

  ‘Since he was sent to France, three years ago.’

  ‘You mean to tell me you’ve been writing to another man for three years?’

  ‘Tom was good to us when you were away,’ Anna said. ‘I felt as if I owed him something.’

  She looked into Edward’s face. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

  ‘I haven’t done anything wrong,’ she protested.

  ‘Why keep it from me, in that case?’

  ‘Because – I knew you wouldn’t like it.’

  Edward’s brows rose but he said nothing. Anna watched him as he picked up the brooch and examined it.

  ‘It’s funny that you chose to wear this on your wedding day,’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘I wore it because it was pretty, that’s all. Something blue, like you said.’ Anna watched him anxiously. ‘It doesn’t mean anything, Edward.’

  ‘Do you still have them?’ he interrupted her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The letters. Do you still have them?’

  Anna nodded, not meeting his eye.

  ‘And you say it doesn’t mean anything.’ Edward’s smile was twisted with malice.

  ‘But I keep all my letters,’ Anna protested. ‘Yours, and Liesel’s, and my parents’.’

  ‘That’s different, isn’t it?’ Edward snapped. ‘We’re your family. You don’t keep letters from someone who means nothing to you!’

  ‘All right, perhaps he does mean something,’ Anna said. ‘Tom saved our lives, don’t forget. Liesel and Mother and I wouldn’t be alive now if he hadn’t risked his life to rescue us. And we wouldn’t have a roof over our heads if he hadn’t rebuilt this place.’

  ‘All right, all right! You don’t have to go on about it.’ Edward cut her off angrily. ‘Christ, I’m sick of hearing what a bloody hero Tom Franklin is.’

  ‘You’re right, we don’t have to talk about it.’ Anna turned to him pleadingly. ‘Can’t we just forget all about it, please? This is supposed to be our wedding night.’

  ‘Fetch the letters.’

  ‘What? No.’

  ‘Why not? What have you got to hide?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Then you won’t mind me reading them, will you?’

  Anna stared at his face, so cold and implacable she barely recognised him. Anger rose inside her.

  ‘Actually, I do mind,’ she said. ‘Those letters are private.’

  He looked coldly triumphant. ‘So you do have something to hide?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then I want to see them.’

  Anna sighed angrily. ‘All right. If that’s what you really want.’

  She crossed the room and retrieved the box from the back of the wardrobe.

  ‘There,’ she said, dumping it in Edward’s hands. ‘These are all my letters. Now please, can we stop all this?’ she begged.

  ‘That depends, doesn’t it?’ He undid the top bundle of letters, holding up the red ribbon she had tied them with.

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On what you and Tom Franklin got up to while I was away.’

  Anna gasped. ‘Edward! You don’t think—’

  ‘I don’t know what to think. You said Tom Franklin was good to you. How do I know you weren’t good to him, too?’

  ‘Edward!’

  ‘He was always sniffing around you like a dog on heat, even when I was here. I wonder if you got bored of waiting fo
r me and decided to give him a chance instead.’

  Anna didn’t know what she was doing until she felt her hand sting and saw Edward standing in front of her, one hand pressed against his cheek. The letters were scattered on the floor at his feet.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I – I just want all this to stop. Please, Edward,’ she begged. ‘Can’t we forget everything and start again. It’s our wedding night.’

  Edward stared at her, his face expressionless. As he took his hand away from his face, Anna could see the reddened imprint of her palm on her cheek.

  Then he smiled, a menacing smile that did not reach his cold blue eyes.

  ‘So it is,’ he said softly.

  He took a step towards her. Anna backed away from him, colliding with the iron bedstead.

  ‘What – what are you doing?’ she said.

  ‘Like you said, it’s our wedding night. I’m only taking what’s rightfully mine.’

  He grabbed her by the shoulders. Anna fell backwards on to the bed, Edward on top of her.

  ‘No!’ She fought him off, her hands pushing hard against his bare chest. ‘Not like this!’

  ‘I bet you didn’t push Franklin away, did you?’ Edward pinned her down, his face leering above hers. His breath stank of cigarettes and beer. ‘I’ll bet you couldn’t wait, could you?’

  ‘I didn’t, I swear.’

  ‘Did you do it here, in this bed? Is this where he had you?’ He was pressing down on her, making it hard for her to breathe. ‘I bet he wasn’t gentle with you, was he? I bet he was rough, like an animal …’

  ‘No! Edward, please!’ Anna fought to get herself free. But the more she squirmed, the more excited Edward seemed to be. ‘I swear, I’ve never—’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out, ain’t there? Believe me, I’ll know if you’ve been with someone else!’

  What followed was as brutal as it was shocking. After a few moments, Anna stopped trying to fight and lay still as Edward thrust into her, grunting like an angry beast. The burning, searing pain was almost unbearable, but Anna did not dare cry out. Instead she bit her lip, tasting blood, and prayed for it to end.

  Mercifully, it didn’t last long. Finally Edward rolled off her, and a moment later he was asleep on his back, his drunken snores echoing around the silent room.

  Anna turned her head away from him and saw the shredded remains of what was once her beautiful nightgown lying on the rug beside the bed.

  She swallowed back the sob that rose in her throat, too terrified even to cry.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  She woke up in darkness to the clatter and chink of the milk cart in the street.

  ‘Happy New Year!’ someone called out, and for a brief moment Anna felt nothing, until the blackness of what had happened engulfed her all over again.

  She had been too terrified to go to sleep at first. She had lain there rigid, staring at nothing, her mind blank with horror. It hadn’t happened, she tried to tell herself. It was nothing more than a terrible dream. But all the while the burning pain between her legs consumed her. She longed to get up and wash herself, but Edward’s arm was flung possessively over her body, pinning her to the bed. Anna scarcely dared to breathe in case she woke him and he wanted to have his way with her again.

  Somehow, finally, she must have fallen into a fitful sleep, because when she woke up the bed beside her was empty.

  Still Anna lay for a while, too terrified to move. She didn’t want to stay there, but she didn’t want to get up either, because that would mean facing Edward and what had happened.

  She looked to one side. The tattered remains of her nightdress had gone, and so had the letters.

  Then she heard trays clattering in the kitchen below the bedroom, and Edward’s voice.

  ‘“I’m Burlington Bertie, I rise at ten-thirty, and saunter along like a toff …”’

  He was singing. At first she could hardly believe it, but there he was, actually whistling a merry tune as he went about his work.

  Anna cautiously got out of bed. The burning throb between her legs had subsided, but she still felt sticky and sore, and when she went to wash herself she found a pattern of bruises at the tops of her thighs where Edward had forced them apart.

  Her stomach lurched, and the next moment Anna was violently sick.

  She bent over the basin, her head resting on the cold porcelain, the bitter taste of bile filling her mouth and throat. She wanted to stay there forever, never have to go out and face the world.

  But then she looked up at her wan reflection in the mirror, and slowly but surely her good sense began to reassert itself. Why should she be the one to hide herself away? She had done nothing wrong. If anyone should be ashamed, it was Edward.

  Besides, this was her home, her bakery. She belonged here.

  ‘“I’m Bert, Bert, I haven’t a shirt, but my people are well off, you know …”’

  His voice drifted up from downstairs, rising over the clatter of tins.

  Anna scrubbed her face, washing away all traces of tears. If she was going to show her face to the world, she would make sure it was a brave one.

  But her nerve almost failed her as she went downstairs and headed for the kitchen. As she approached, she could hear Edward and Charlie laughing together like old friends.

  They both turned to face Anna when she walked in.

  ‘Here she is, Charlie. My beautiful bride.’ Edward came to greet her, his arms open, a wide smile on his face. ‘You should have stayed in bed, sweetheart. I would have come and woken you up with a cup of tea and a kiss later.’

  Confused, Anna allowed herself to be swept into his warm embrace. All the while, her mind was racing. Was this really the same Edward who had forced himself on her so savagely, who had hurt and humiliated her and spat curses in her face while he was doing it?

  Over Edward’s shoulder she saw Charlie leering suggestively. Had Edward told him what had happened? she wondered. Hot shame washed over her.

  She moved out of his arms, smoothing down her skirt with trembling fingers. ‘I should give you a hand.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ Edward said smoothly. ‘Charlie and I can manage. Why don’t you go back to bed? It’s still early. I’ll come up and join you when I’ve finished this next batch of loaves.’

  ‘No!’ Nausea lurched in her stomach. ‘I’m up now,’ she said, more calmly. ‘Besides, I’d like to help.’

  ‘And I’ve told you, we don’t need it.’ She flinched as Edward’s hands came down on her shoulders, steering her towards the door. ‘If you want to help, why don’t you make us all a cuppa? Charlie and I are parched, ain’t we, mate?’

  As Anna went down the passageway to the smaller kitchen she could hear them laughing again. Were they laughing at her?

  She was shaking as she filled the kettle under the tap. This was supposed to be a happy day, the start of her new life with Edward. She was meant to wake up feeling loved and cherished, not used and hurt.

  And for Edward to act as if nothing had happened – she could scarcely believe it. It unsettled her, made her wonder if she had imagined the whole thing.

  Or perhaps this was what it was supposed to be like? Was this how it happened? Did all brides wake up the following morning feeling as shocked and humiliated as she did?

  Surely that couldn’t be right. Anna had heard the women on the wards, laughing and nudging each other and making sly remarks about what happened with their husbands in the bedroom. They certainly didn’t make it sound as brutal or as frightening an experience as the one she had suffered. And if it were, she wondered that they ever wanted to do it again.

  Once again, she longed for her mother. Dorothy Beck would have been able to advise her, to tell her what was right and what wasn’t.

  Who else could she ask? she wondered. Mrs Wheeler, or Mrs Hudson from next door? Not unless she wanted her business broadcast up and down Chambord Street. Or perhaps Mrs Church? Anna shuddered at the thought. No, she decide
d, this was something she had to sort out on her own.

  Edward came in as she was pouring the tea. For a long time he stood in the doorway, just watching her. Anna moved stiffly, her body rigid, every muscle tensed. If he touched her again, she would throw the scalding contents of the teapot over him, she decided.

  Finally he spoke. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  Anna paused, the teapot in her head. She didn’t turn round, or look at him.

  ‘I should never have behaved like that,’ he went. ‘I know I was drunk, but that’s no excuse for what I did. I hurt you, and I can’t forgive myself for that. I feel so wretchedly ashamed.’

  Anna said nothing. She thought about him laughing and singing in the kitchen that morning. He hadn’t sounded like someone consumed with shame.

  ‘I – I couldn’t help myself,’ Edward said. ‘When I saw that brooch, and those letters – I just saw red. I thought you were hiding something from me.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘I know that now. I should have trusted you. But I was a jealous fool.’ He was quiet for a long time. When he spoke again, his voice was broken. ‘I remember when I was away in the trenches, the men who got letters from their sweethearts telling them they had met someone else. I used to live in fear that one day I’d get a letter like that from you.’

  Anna swung round to face him. Edward’s handsome face was desolate, like a lost child’s. She had never seen him so vulnerable, not even when he was poorly in hospital.

  ‘I always knew Tom liked you – no, he did,’ he insisted, as she opened her mouth to speak. ‘You might not have been able to see it, but I could. It nearly sent me mad when I had to go off to France and leave you here with him. I felt sure he’d take you away from me. And then when you wrote and told me what a hero he’d been, saving you from the fire and rebuilding this place …’ He lifted his gaze to meet hers. ‘It should have been me here looking after you, not him.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault you weren’t here,’ Anna said quietly.

  ‘That doesn’t matter. The point is, I wasn’t and he was. And there was nothing I could do but watch and wait and hope that he wouldn’t take you away from me.’