Twisted Strands (27 page)

‘She’s no granddaughter of mine,’ Harry said abruptly. ‘I disowned my daughter when she got herself into trouble.’

The minister glanced from one to the other, perplexed for a moment. Then, as realization dawned, a look of disapproval crossed his face. To Bridie’s surprise, it was not directed at her
but at her grandfather. ‘Harry Singleton – I’m ashamed of you!’

‘Wha . . .?’ For a brief moment, Harry was disconcerted, but then his mouth tightened and he actually had the temerity to shake his fist at the minister. ‘You mind your
business, Mr Simmonds, and I’ll mind mine.’ Leaving a shocked minister and an even more surprised Bridie, Harry turned and marched across the street towards his home.

‘Well!’ The man seemed lost for words and at once Bridie said, ‘I am sorry, sir, but my grandad is very bitter about what happened in the past. I don’t know everything
except that I was born out of wedlock. I think that is the politest way to put it.’ She smiled up at him ruefully, then added sadly, ‘And my mother died at my birth.’

The big man put his hand on her shoulder. Suddenly all his bluster and fire was gone and his tone was gentle and understanding. ‘My dear child, then you should be loved and treasured even
more.’

At this stranger’s unexpected kindness, tears sprang to her eyes more readily than if he had treated her harshly.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, her voice breaking. She dropped her head as she added, ‘I wish my grandfather felt the same.’

She felt the minister squeeze her shoulder. He said no more, but she saw him looking thoughtfully across the road in the direction of Harry’s home.

‘I must go,’ Bridie said. ‘It’s been nice to meet you, sir.’

The man patted her back and his voice boomed with goodwill once again. ‘Take heart, my child. I’ll see what I can do to help.’

He walked across the road at her side and she left him with his hand raised to knock on her grandfather’s door.

‘Did you hear it?’ Mary said as they climbed into the motor car to go home. ‘Whatever was all that shouting as we passed Harry’s cottage?’

Bridie, standing beside the vehicle, said, ‘It’s Grandad and the minister. I think they’re arguing over me.’

‘Over you?’ At once Mary was suspicious. ‘
Now
what have you been up to, girl?’

‘Being born, Gran,’ Bridie said simply. ‘That’s all.’

‘Eh?’ Mary was mystified and even Eveleen looked at her questioningly.

Bridie sighed. ‘I think the minister’s telling him off for the way he treats me because – because I’m illegitimate.’

Mary sniffed. ‘Not before time, but I shouldn’t think it’ll do any good. He doesn’t know Harry like I do.’

There was a flurry of goodbyes and much waving and Eveleen turned the vehicle around and headed down the street. Conversation was difficult between the four of them above the noise of the
engine, so it wasn’t until they reached Pear Tree Farm and were sitting together having a cup of tea, before Eveleen and Helen made their way back to Nottingham, that the conversation turned
again to Bridie.

‘Well, I have to say it and you know I’m not given to praising folk . . .’ Mary began and her daughter hid her smile, ‘but that child is doing very well.’

‘She is,’ Helen agreed. ‘She was a good little worker in the mending room, but even I can see that she’s in her element caring for people.’

‘You’d certainly think so, Mam, if you’d seen Gran when she first went there. If Bridie hadn’t insisted on looking after her, I don’t know what would have happened
by now.’

‘I managed to sneak a look in the workshops whilst Harry was at chapel,’ Josh said. ‘The new folks you’ve sent there, Evie, are doing very well by all accounts.’ He
chuckled as he added, ‘Even the women. There was an oldish man teaching a young girl. “What’s this?” I said, “Working on a Sunday?” The old feller laughed and
said, “Old Harry can turn a blind eye when it suits him.”’

‘How was the girl shaping up?’ Eveleen was anxious to know.

‘All right, as far as I could see.’

‘It’s surprised me that Harry’s ever agreed to your plans, especially having girls working there,’ Mary said.

‘I don’t think he had much choice if he wanted his workshops to survive,’ Josh said. ‘Your mother said his eyesight is poor now, but he won’t admit it.’

Mary sniffed. ‘If I know my brother, it’s more a matter of money. He’ll do anything to make a bob or two.’ She glanced at Eveleen. ‘He let you have a go on a frame
when we lived there, didn’t he? But that was only because he couldn’t bear to see even one frame standing idle.’

Eveleen nodded. ‘Yes, and if it hadn’t been for the trouble over Rebecca and Jimmy, I think he’d have let me carry on working one.’

‘Aye.’ Mary was pensive. ‘But for them, I reckon we might still have been living there.’

‘No, we wouldn’t, Mam,’ Eveleen countered. ‘When we were forced to leave here, I promised I would bring you back one day.’ She pulled a wry face. ‘Though I
have to admit it would have taken me a long time on the wages I earned in the inspection room.’

The four of them laughed together, then Mary said, ‘Well, Master Stephen’s high ’n’ mighty ways haven’t done him a lot of good. Josh heard the other day that
he’s put the estate up for sale – what’s left of it. Even Fairfield House is on the market.’

Eveleen digested the news with mixed emotions. It saddened her to think that the once great estate that had supported several families, her father and even her grandfather before him, had been
broken up and sold bit by bit because of one spoilt, self-centred and dissolute young man.

‘What’ll happen to the families who still work for him? What about the Mortons?’

Mary shrugged. ‘He’ll turn ’em out, I expect, just like he did us, when he’s no more use for them.’

‘Micky works in Grantham now,’ Josh put in. ‘And Ted’s volunteered. He went the day before yesterday.’

‘Oh no, not Ted too.’ Eveleen was sorry to hear that her childhood friend had gone. She hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye. Another ‘goodbye’ unsaid.

‘Well,’ Mary said, her mouth tight as she rose to clear away the cups and saucers, ‘I tell you one person who won’t be going. Master Stephen. He’s too much of a
coward.’

Eveleen stared at her. ‘You’ve changed your tune, Mam,’ she said bluntly. ‘I thought you didn’t hold with the war.’

‘No more I do, but if all the fine young men – Richard, Andrew . . .’ Her tone softened. ‘And somewhere I expect my Jimmy’s caught up in it too – why should
someone like Stephen Dunsmore escape?’

‘I don’t think he will for long, love,’ Josh said solemnly. ‘If it goes on much longer, they’ll bring in conscription, then he’ll probably have to
go.’

Mary’s eyes were suddenly fearful. ‘You won’t, will you?’

Josh smiled, but there was a hint of regret as if, deep down, he would have liked the chance to prove his love for his country. ‘No, love. I’m far too old. But – ’ his
face brightened – ‘we’ll do our bit here at home.’ He turned to Eveleen. ‘You bring that poor young feller out here as soon as you like. We’ll look after him.
What do they call him?’

Eveleen touched his hand. ‘Sid Robinson. Thank you, Josh. Win will be so grateful.’

‘We’ve all got to do our bit where we can. Even little Bridie’s doing hers, looking after the old lady and her grandfather too, if only he’d let her.’

‘He’ll never do that,’ Mary remarked as she disappeared into the scullery. ‘Not till the sun shines both sides the hedge at the same time.’

‘We don’t need you here. We don’t want you here. And you had no right to go snivelling to the minister, telling him of our family’s shame.’

Harry’s huge, outraged figure seemed to fill Bridget’s living room. She sat still and silent, hunched in her chair by the fire, whilst, standing in front of her great-grandmother as
if to protect her from his onslaught, Bridie faced him boldly.

‘Great-Gran needs me even if you don’t.’

‘Lil can look after her,’ he boomed.

‘No, she can’t. She’s a slattern. Did you even know what this place looked like when I arrived? Did you even care enough to visit your own mother?’

‘Don’t you dare answer me back, girl—’

‘I’m not afraid of you. I can walk out of here whenever I like—’

‘That’s exactly what I want you to do.’

‘But I’m staying. I’m staying to look after me Great-Gran and I’d look after you too, you stubborn old man, if only you’d let me. But no, you’re too proud,
too – too unforgiving.’ She flung her arm out towards the old lady cowering in her chair. ‘You’d sooner watch her die than unbend enough to let me help. Well, I’m not
going anywhere, so you might as well get used to it.’ She took a step closer to the man. ‘If you want me gone, you’ll have to carry me out bodily.’ Suddenly she grinned so
saucily, so cheekily, that only the hardest of hearts could have resisted. ‘And even then I’ll come back.’

But it seemed that Harry Singleton’s heart was made of stone. He turned on his heel and left the cottage. Bridie heard a sob behind her and turned to kneel beside the old lady.

She put her arms around her. ‘There, there, Great-Gran, don’t cry. It’ll be all right. This war’s got to be over soon and then Andrew and all the others will come home.
Everything will be all right then.’

Everything will be all right for all of us, Bridie promised herself silently, if only Andrew comes home safely.

Eveleen drew the motor car to a halt outside her home. As the engine noise died away, Helen said, ‘Eveleen, I can’t thank you enough. I don’t know what I
would have done without you these last few weeks. I would never have got through.’

Eveleen covered Helen’s hand with her own. ‘Nonsense, of course you would.’ She smiled gently at her friend. ‘Darling Helen, it’s your own courage that’s
carried you through. Leslie would be so proud of you.’

Helen nodded, smiling bravely through unshed tears, but she could not speak. Eveleen patted her hand. ‘Come on. Let’s go in. It’s getting dark.’

‘I won’t come in, if you don’t mind. I’ll go home.’ She bit her lip as she glanced at Eveleen. ‘I’ve got to face being on my own at night sooner or
later.’

‘You should have said. I could have dropped you at your home first.’

‘It’s not far. I’ll walk.’

‘Well, just come in and have—’

The front door of the house had opened and Emily, holding up her skirt, was running down the steps. She was holding out a yellow envelope and her face showed signs of tears. She was breathless
and anxious as she reached them.

‘Oh, ma’am. I didn’t know what to do. This came this morning. I didn’t know where to find you. Oh, ma’am. It’s a telegram. From the War Office.’

For a moment, Eveleen was frozen, unable to move, then she reached out and took the thin paper into her hands. She felt Helen slip her arm around her shoulders as, with trembling fingers,
Eveleen tore open the telegram.

‘Oh no!’ Her fingers fluttered to her lips. ‘It’s Andrew. “Missing in action”, it says. Oh, Helen.’ She turned to face her friend, her eyes already
filling with tears. ‘However am I going to tell Bridie?’

‘I don’t believe it, Auntie Eveleen. Andrew’s not dead. I’d know it if he was.’ She put her hand over her own heart. ‘I’d feel it
here.’

Eveleen had sent word to Pear Tree Farm of the dreadful news, but she had come again to Flawford the very next day to break the news to her niece herself.

‘It only says “missing”. They don’t know for sure,’ Bridie insisted, denying even the thought that she would never see him again.

Eveleen watched her helplessly. How could she tell this young girl that the conditions out there were so terrible that men died, blown to a thousand pieces, so that no recognizable trace was
ever found. That soldiers were buried together hurriedly during a lull in the fighting, their identities unknown, their resting place unmarked. Wounded soldiers, sent home from the Front, were
telling the truth now about what this war was really like. And talk of it was rife amongst the workers at Reckitt and Stokes.

‘Well, yes, that’s true,’ Eveleen said haltingly, feeling guilty at confirming Bridie’s hope. Perhaps it would be kinder, in the long run, to convince her of
Andrew’s death. The sooner the girl came to terms with it, the better. ‘But, darling, I don’t think they would send a telegram if there was the slightest chance
that—’

Bridie was adamant. ‘Yes, they would. Mrs Turner’s got a friend in the village. She was telling me. She got a telegram about her son. Just the same as that.’ Bridie prodded her
finger accusingly at the offending piece of paper. ‘And then he turned up alive. He’d been wounded and taken to a field hospital. His identity tag was missing and because he was
unconscious they didn’t know who he was. So it
does
happen.’

‘Yes, of course it does, but . . .’ Eveleen bit her lip, coming to a sudden decision, right or wrong. Let the poor child have hope for a while longer. Maybe coming to the truth
gradually was the best way for Bridie. Eveleen forced herself to smile, though her own heart was heavy. She could not believe, not for a minute, that Andrew was still alive. Aloud she said,
‘Pray God you’re right, Bridie.’

She held out her arms and they hugged each other fiercely. When they drew apart, Bridie said quietly, ‘If you’re not in a rush to get back, perhaps you could sit with Great-Gran for
a while. I – I’m going across to the chapel.’

Eveleen nodded, unable to speak for the lump in her throat. She watched the girl leave the cottage, pass by the window, her shoulders hunched, her head down. ‘She knows all right,’
Eveleen whispered. ‘She knows the truth, but she’s just refusing to believe it.’

Sadly Eveleen turned and went upstairs to tell Bridget.

‘Aw, that’s bad news,’ the old lady was saying moments later. ‘That child worships him.’

‘He’s been very good to her. Visiting the farm almost every week since she was a baby.’

‘I thought as much, though he never said.’

‘I suppose he didn’t want to cause trouble here. Uncle Harry might have sacked him if he’d known.’

Bridget gave a wry laugh. ‘I don’t think so. Harry’s no fool when it comes to money and Andrew was a good worker.’