Dreams Can Come True (35 page)

Maggie closed her eyes, hoping that sleep would come so that her mind could get some rest from all its troubled thoughts.

“So you’re telling me that your Mother is expectin’ and the father of the baby isn’t my father in law, but it’s me Uncle Johnny! Hannah! You’re kiddin’ me, aren’t yer? Both of them are as old as Methuselah. So, this is what you were waitin’ to tell me? Does he know? Does Uncle Johnny know that Maggie’s expectin’? No, Hannah, you must have got it wrong somehow. Did yer Mother tell yer this story? She’s made it up, hasn’t she?”

Eddie felt totally bewildered with Hannah’s explanation of Maggie’s sudden flight. He kept running his fingers through his hair and pacing up and down.

“Get me a drink, Hannah. A drop of that brandy will do. How long have yer known that that was the real reason? She told me her trip was to do with a friend.”

“Well, she could hardly tell you that she was in a certain condition, could she? Not her son in law. She might not be anyway; all this could be to do with her age.”

“You’ve lost me, Hannah. What has all this got to do with Uncle Johnny then, or her age?”

“Mother and Uncle Johnny spent a week together in the Adelphi. He hadn’t just met her that morning as he’d said; they’d both come over from Liverpool.”

Hannah turned away from Eddie, feeling a bubbling of hysteria. This was a serious explanation she was giving him, but the weeks of agonising with Maggie had been just as painful for her.

“You’re saying that they were lovers, Maggie and Uncle Johnny, but because of their ages a baby may or may not be a possibility? I don’t understand, Hannah. Surely a woman knows if she’s having a baby? If they’ve been lovers it’s probably true.”

“Not necessarily, Eddie. When a woman reaches Maggie’s age, their monthlies stop and that could be Mother’s problem.

“Oh, please Hannah, spare me the detail, some things I don’t want to know about!”

“I’m just giving you an explanation. I persuaded her to go to Bridget’s in Ireland. You know the people I told you about, who we stayed with in Ballina? No one else knows her there; she’ll see a doctor and if she is expecting she’ll say that it belongs to Jack.”

“And if she isn’t, she’ll stay a few weeks until she’s feeling better, then she’ll come home again?”

“Yes, that’s right, and meantime we’ve got the problem of Michael.”

“And Uncle Johnny. Strange if they were lovers that he’s not been seen again.”

“Well, they’ve had a bit of a misunderstanding. She did write a note to apologise, but it seems she forgot to send it. If you remember that was before she caught the ‘flu.”

“Oh, Uncle Johnny’ll pop up again, you wait and see, then we can tell him of his baby son or daughter.”

“No, we mustn’t, Eddie,” cried Hannah in alarm. “You’re not supposed to know, she swore me to secrecy! She’s going to write and let me know what the doctor says, then I’ve to tell you how long you’ll be in charge of the company. Remember, it’s very important that no one else knows what is happening. It’ll cause a scandal if any of this gets out.”

“So, what do we do with Michael then? Do yer want me to go and see him and explain his mother’s whereabouts?”

“Oh, would you, Eddie?”

Hannah kissed him gratefully.

“Tell him that you’re in charge and there’s to be no changes while his mother’s not here. Tell him that you’ll arrange somewhere for him to stay in the village, when he comes out of hospital. Tell him there’s no room for him at Selwyn Lodge.”

Katie jumped up from her seat in alarm as she heard raised voices from the side ward. At long last Sub-Lieutenant Haines had received a visitor; not his mother who he had hoped would come, but a young man who she recognised as Eddie Dockerty from the Brown Horse Inn. She had heard through Annie that he had married Maggie Haines’s daughter so had welcomed him with relief when he had said who he was visiting. A week had passed since Sister Gill had called at Selwyn Lodge and, as she had confided in Katie on her return to the ward, Mrs. Haines had gone away and his sister, Mrs. Dockerty, hadn’t seemed too pleased to hear of her brother’s return.

“I couldn’t tell him that, could I?” Sister Gill had said sadly. “News like that could give him a relapse and I was hoping that he could be discharged into his family’s care.”

Katie walked briskly along the corridor. She wasn’t having a patient upset, especially to Michael, who was important to her.

“Is there a problem?” she asked in her sternest voice, as she took in the scene from the doorway. Michael was raised on one elbow, glaring at his visitor, anger written all over his face.

“Not from my point of view, nurse,” retorted Eddie calmly. “But perhaps yon man here could do with some smelling salts after what I’ve just told him.”

“Do you realise that Sub-Lieutenant Haines has suffered severe trauma due to his time spent serving on behalf of his Queen and country in India? If you have come here to be unpleasant, I think you should be asked to leave!”

“It’s all right, Staff Nurse,” Michael said, through what sounded like clenched teeth. “I can fight my own battles; don’t worry about me.”

“That is what I’m paid to do whilst your in my care, Sub-Lieutenant.” Katie turned to go, glowering at Eddie.

“Ten more minutes, Mr. Dockerty if you please, and then you’ll have to go.”

Michael fell back onto his pillow, seething at having to be polite to his one and only visitor. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. What a betrayal. By his own mother! He had only been away, for what, eighteen months? And in that time, his father had gone to live in Wicklow, Hannah had married this pot boy from the Brown Horse and the Sheldon Loan and Property Company had been signed over to a bloody stranger, while the owner, his mother, had gone away! Where was that going to leave him in the scheme of things? If he was medically discharged from the Army he’d have no income. He couldn’t move back to Selwyn Lodge because of these usurpers and unless someone informed his mother of her son’s return, there’d be no place for him at Sheldon either.

Michael felt angry and dismayed at his mother’s treachery, though he supposed grudgingly, that if she had known that he was here in the hospital she wouldn’t have gone away. His mind worked quickly as he thought of the position his sister and her husband could put him in. He could be left to moulder here ‘til the hospital threw him out, go back to the barracks to honour his obligations, be sent overseas to a firing line and fall prey to the diseases that lurked there. None of it appealed and he knew he had to play for time.

He forced a friendly grin on his face and held out his hand to Eddie.

“I must congratulate you on your marriage to my stepsister. Are there any children? Am I an uncle by any chance?”

“Oh yes,” Eddie nodded eagerly, grateful that his brother-in-law seemed to have accepted the situation so quickly. It would have come as a shock to him, poor chap, even more so when you consider the state he must have been in.

“We have a six month old son called Johnny, he’s been named after my uncle, and Hannah is expecting another baby at the end of September, or maybe beginning of October, we’re not sure. It was quite a surprise really, her getting caught so quickly, but we’re looking forward to a big family anyway.”

Michael shuddered inwardly at the thought of Selwyn Lodge being full of mewling babies. He’d be rid of the lot of them when what was rightfully his was given back to him.

“And the business? Is it doing well? What is your role in the company?”

“It’s doing extremely well. We’ve a big development underway on what was Farmer Briggs’s old farmland. Luxurious dwellings for the middle class and a few bungalows fer the not so wealthy. We’ve built a terrace row on Town Lane and have a thriving business with loans and mortgages. As fer me, I’m the Site Manager, overseeing the snagging lists and ensuring all goes smoothly. Your mother has not been very well, so I’ve been gradually taking more and more off her. Not her committee meetings though,” Eddie said with a smile. “I haven’t been roped in fer them just yet.”

“Sounds an up and coming company. She’s done very well for herself, has my mother. Is there any room in this great establishment for another family member? Me?”

“Oh, I didn’t realise that you were thinking of coming out of the Army…”

Eddie felt at a bit of a loss. What would Hannah say?

“I did write to my mother to tell her that I wanted to give up my commission. She obviously didn’t receive my letter because I am sure she would have pulled all the strings to get me out. The conditions were quite appalling over there. I realised my mistake as soon as we were taken to our quarters. Some of the officers just got on with it, but I couldn’t take to the place somehow.”

“Well, I’ll let yer know what’s decided. Hannah can’t make any decisions without her mother knowing that you’re back. She’ll write to her…”

Michael nodded, suddenly weary. He could see Staff Nurse Tibbs hovering anxiously at the door; this was a good time to send this uncouth person on his way.

“Whatever… Oh, by the way, Eddie. Something for you to think on while you’re both planning what to do with me. Hannah isn’t my mother’s child, you know. Your wife is illegitimate. One day Sheldon in all its glory will come to me.”

Maggie hurried up the stairs of the Heaney Hotel, trying to get to her bedroom before Bridget or Frank waylaid her. The shock of having her pregnancy confirmed had knocked the stuffing right out of her. All she wanted to do was hide herself away until she could come to terms with what she’d just heard. It was true then; Hannah had been right all along.

The doctor had looked at her quizzically when Maggie explained in his consulting rooms that she thought she might be expecting. He was the same doctor who had attended Jack and he had been most sympathetic when he heard that Maggie’s husband had recently passed away.

“It could be that his death has brought on bodily changes in you, Mrs. Haines. It is highly likely that your bleeding would cease forthwith due to the grieving you will have done. However, if there is the slightest possibility that you may be bearing his child, I shall investigate. If you wouldn’t mind undressing behind the screen, I will examine you at once.”

It had all seemed a sort of nightmare as Maggie had submitted to the doctor’s examination. She had held her breath, hoping that he would say that there was nothing he could find to confirm her fears. It had felt like she was walking through a shadowy mist when she had come from behind the screen again. Her hands were shaking as she skewered her hat back on with its diamond-encrusted pin, then fiddled with the ties on her tippet, hoping that the doctor couldn’t hear her heart that was beating like a drum.

“I think I’m right in saying that your baby should arrive at the end of November, or possibly December. You said you couldn’t be sure what the date of your last bleeding was?”

“That’s true,” Maggie admitted shakily. “I caught the ‘flu after my husband died and everything became a bit of a blur.”

“Poor lady. Have you got someone to take care of you? I think you told me you were on your way to England, when I attended your late husband that time at the Heaney Hotel.”

“Yes, I have good friends in Frank and Bridget,” Maggie assured him. “I hope to be staying with them until after the birth.”

She had felt so ashamed as the doctor had murmured his sympathies and told her to call into his rooms in a few months time, to arrange a local midwife to attend her.

“Not that I want to alarm you, but you did say that your last confinement was over twenty three years ago. Isn’t it strange how the God above works in His mysterious ways?”

He certainly did, thought Maggie, as she lay on top of the bed worrying her miserable heart out. This disobedience to all she had been brought up to believe could bring her the ultimate punishment in the end. How dare she commit adultery? It was the seventh of the Ten Commandments. She knew them all, didn’t she? The Bible was the first book that she had ever read.

Katie left Michael to himself after she had heard his parting shot to his visitor. Goodness, she felt all of a tremble. Fancy that nice young officer having such a bitter tongue.

It was none of her business, she knew, but what he had said would be such a scandal if it ever got around. How he must be hurting though, to be denied his home because his mother wasn’t there. What a homecoming. All the other men had received flocks of visitors during their time on Thornton Ward, so much so that she’d restricted them to two persons by each bed.

“So that’s what he thinks, Eddie,” said Hannah, when her husband had reported back to her. “He thinks that if anything happens to Mother then he’ll get the blooming lot. Well, not if I have anything to do with it. I’m just as much Maggie’s daughter as he is her son. She took me in when I was little and brought me up as one of her family. He’ll have to prize me out with a toothpick before any of it falls into his hands.”

“Hannah, there’s not a thing you can do if Maggie has willed the lot to him. Not a court in the land will come down in your favour. You must see that, sweetheart. Anyway, I said you’d write to her and let her know of his return. Then it’s up to Maggie to say who can live here and who runs the businesses.”