Walking Back to Happiness. Anne Bennett

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      But it was how Hannah thought of him. Solid, rather dull Mr Bradley – Arthur Bradley – the one Gloria Emmerson told Hannah she must grab before someone else did. He was her stab, perhaps her only stab, towards respectability.

      Not of course that Mr Bradley knew anything about Hannah’s past. Oh dear me no, that would never have done. But Gloria knew and she liked Hannah and wanted the best for her.

      That’s why she found her a job in her thriving guesthouse and then latched on to Mr Bradley, a commercial traveller, who’d confided in her that he was sick of the road. ‘To rise in the firm though,’ he’d said dolefully, ‘I need a wife. The boss thinks married men are more steady and reliable.’

      If Gloria thought Arthur Bradley was just about the steadiest person she’d ever met, she gave no indication of it. ‘But,’ Arthur had gone on, ‘I don’t want to marry and anyway, I’ve nothing to offer a wife. The house went with my father’s job, you see. After he died, Mother had the house during her lifetime, but when she died it went back to the firm. So I don’t even have a permanent place to live.’

      That had all changed a little later when out of the blue, Arthur inherited a large terraced house in Harrison Road, Erdington, after the demise of an elderly uncle. Gloria immediately began to think of him as a suitable catch for Hannah. First, though, she had to win Hannah round to her way of thinking, for she’d shown no interest in any men in the time she’d known her.

      Hannah wasn’t the least bit interested in Arthur Bradley either. She felt sorry for him at times but didn’t really know why. He seemed a lonely sort of man, out of step with the rest of the world somehow. Gloria said it was because he’d lived all those years with his mother. ‘How many years?’ Hannah asked. ‘He’s not that old.’

      ‘I’d have said he was going on for forty.’

      Hannah was surprised. ‘Do you think he’s that old?’ she asked. ‘Was he in the war?’

      ‘No,’ Gloria said. ‘He had flat feet or some such he told me. Anyway, it doesn’t bother you him being so much older than you, does it? I mean, he doesn’t look his age.’

      He didn’t, Hannah had to admit that. Despite Arthur Bradley’s thinning brown hair and the wire-framed glasses perched on his long, narrow nose, he didn’t look his age. She supposed that was because he was quite skinny, wiry almost, and he looked worse because he was so tall. His whole face was long, too, and had a mournful look about it, particularly his dull brown eyes, and Hannah realised while Mr Bradley didn’t look his age, he certainly acted it.

      ‘Don’t you want to be a respectable married woman?’ Gloria demanded.

      ‘Of course,’ Hannah said. ‘If everything had gone to plan, I would be married now, but I don’t want to marry just anyone.’

      ‘Look,’ Gloria said. ‘I don’t wish to be harsh, but your lad’s body is lying buried in the sands of a Normandy beach. He isn’t ever coming back and you have to accept that. Do you want a life of loneliness?’

      ‘I don’t love Mr Bradley.’

      ‘Do you like him?’

      ‘Aye, I suppose.’

      ‘Then you’ll rub along well enough, I’d say.’

      ‘Gloria, there is more to marriage than that.’

      ‘Yes, there is. One thing is, can he provide for you? Well, Arthur can. He has a good job and a fine house that you would be mistress of.’

      ‘Those kind of things don’t impress me.’

      ‘Well, they should. Money is a hard thing to get along without.’

      ‘How do you know, anyway, that Arthur will be for it?’

      ‘I don’t,’ Gloria admitted. ‘But the boss is on to him to get himself married and I know he’s gone on you.’

      ‘Don’t be daft, I’m sure he’s not,’ Hannah snapped.

      Gloria wondered why it was that Hannah didn’t realise how truly lovely she was with that glossy mane of auburn hair, creamy-coloured skin and startling green eyes. And then Gloria had played her ace card. ‘Don’t you ever want a child, Hannah?’

      Hannah wanted a child more than anything in the world, and Gloria knew that, but she’d accepted the fact that with Mike dead there would be no child. But now to have the chance to marry and to be able to have her own baby, a child, to hold in her arms, to love and to watch grow up … Well, it was more than she’d ever expected from life. Was it possible? Could she take Mr Bradley on for life, and it would be for life, in order to have that child?

      Yes, yes she could, her whole being cried. She’d walk over red-hot coals if it would fill the empty void in her life and help heal the ache in her heart. ‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘Sound Mr Bradley out if you must, but you may have a shock. He may not want to marry me at all. He doesn’t strike me as the marrying kind.’

      And that had been that. She had committed herself. But Josie was right, she must stop thinking of him as Mr Bradley. ‘His name is Arthur,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘Come on, dry your eyes and let’s go in.’

      ‘Will I get into trouble?’ Josie asked tremulously. ‘Will they all give out at me?’

      ‘Maybe,’ Hannah said. ‘But I’ll stick up for you, don’t worry. It’s you and me in this together from now on. You and me against the world.’

      Josie liked the sound of that. She got to her feet, scrubbing at her eyes with the sleeve of her cardigan and dusting the pieces of straw from her clothes. ‘I’m ready,’ she said and she followed her aunt down the ladder.

Chapter Two

      Frances’s funeral was well attended and everyone spoke of the fine woman she’d been and what a great loss it was to the whole family. The eldest of the Mullens, Peter, officiated at the Requiem Mass. Hannah knew that would have pleased his mother and also too that Margaret had got dispensation from her convent to attend the service.

      What would have upset her, though, would have been to see Miriam. Hannah had been so shocked at the young woman only a little older than she was herself who she hadn’t seen for years. Miriam’s face was gaunt, though ruddy in complexion, and deeply lined and her hair, which had once been burnished auburn like Hannah’s own, had streaks of grey in it and hung in limp strands around her face. Her black clothes were respectable enough and Hannah guessed they were borrowed because her shoes were scuffed and down at heel. Beneath her coat was the swell of yet another pregnancy. Miriam resembled a woman nearly twice her age and Hannah felt sorry for the life she led.

      But one of the worst aspects of that day for Hannah had been meeting her father. She’d made no move to visit him since she’d come over, knowing she wouldn’t be welcome, and he greeted her with a curt nod as if she were a person he’d seen before, but never really knew. Her brother Eamonn took her in a hug that Hannah knew he’d done just because it was the thing everyone expected but in fact, she felt closer to Mary, his wife, who greeted her warmly and said she must come up to the house.

      She СКАЧАТЬ