Turn Left at the Daffodils. Elizabeth Elgin

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СКАЧАТЬ Mum hadn’t died. She wondered if the Queer One was having trouble getting Georgie to go to bed on his own, and hoped he was being a right little sod. She waited until her aunt had finished counting stitches, then said,

      ‘There’s something I want to ask you – about Mum and Dad…Did they have to get married?’ The words came out in a rush.

      ‘Nobody has to do anything, lass – but what made you ask? I thought you’d have known.’

      ‘Well, I didn’t. Not till yesterday. They were married three months before I was born. It was a shock, I can tell you.’

      ‘Does it matter when? You were born in wedlock. That’s all that need concern you.’

      ‘Yes, but I didn’t think dad was the sort to get a girl into trouble, then take six months to make an honest woman of her. I thought better about him than that, if you must know.’

      ‘Oh dearie me.’ Miriam laid her knitting on her lap, then folded her hands over it, staring into the empty fire grate. ‘Now see here Nan, you’re almost a grown up and for better or for worse, you’ve decided to branch out on your own and join the Army. So I reckon you should know the truth of it, because I don’t want you to think ill of your father – and that was what he became, the minute he married your mother.’

      ‘Became?’ Nan whispered.

      ‘That’s right. Will Morrissey had always cared for your mother – was willing to wed her. He gave you his name, and you should be thankful for it.’

      ‘So am I to be told who my real father was?’ Nan’s heart thudded, her mouth so dry it was difficult to speak.

      ‘No you aren’t, because we never knew. Your mother refused to tell anyone, even Will, who’d been decent enough to marry her. All I know was that she went to her wedding with a hundred pounds in her pocket and a house full of furniture. She was lucky. A lot of women in her predicament got nothing!’

      ‘Ar.’ Still dazed, Nan filled a glass at the kitchen tap and drank deeply. ‘A hundred pounds was a lot of money in them days.’

      ‘It still is. Whoever it was fathered you, Nan, was of moneyed folk.’

      ‘And where was Mum when it – when I happened?’

      ‘Working for a ship-owning family in Liverpool. She was a sort of companion-help to the old mother, I believe. Didn’t you know?’

      She hadn’t known, but it all added up Nan thought, wiping the glass, returning it to the shelf. A hundred pounds and enough furniture to fill the house in Cyprian Court would mean nothing to the likes of them.

      ‘And nobody ever found out?’ she persisted.

      ‘No. Your mother could be the stubborn one. Why she had to go to Liverpool to work, heaven only knows. You’re like her, Nan. Rushing off to join the Army, I mean.’

      ‘But I was never like her in looks, Auntie Mim.’

      ‘True. You must’ve favoured your – the other side. Your mother was fair, as well you know.’

      Her sister’s child, Miriam pondered, had very little to commend her. If you wanted to be brutal, Nan was very ordinary, but for one thing. She had the most beautiful brown eyes, and lashes so long a film star would have killed for them. Those eyes lifted her out of the ordinary.

      ‘So I won’t ever know?’

      ‘Not from me, Nan, and not from poor Will, who knew nothing, anyway. You’ll just have to accept – well – that -’

      ‘That I’m illegitimate. A bastard.’

      ‘Now that’s enough! Whilst you are under my roof, miss, you will not use bad language. And you are not one of those! You were born in wedlock, so that makes you legitimate – in the eyes of the law, anyway!’

      ‘So my mother wasn’t good enough for my real father – is that it?’

      ‘I don’t know, I swear it, Nan, so the whole thing is best forgotten.’

      ‘So if I hadn’t asked about my birth certificate, would you have told me, Auntie Mim?’

      ‘No. Don’t think I would’ve, if only out of respect for your father – for Will. He was a decent man.’

      ‘He was. Did any job he could lay his hand to; never had reg’lar work, till the war started. That was when he got a porter’s job at the hospital. That’s why he was killed that night, him and sixty others. I hate Hitler. And I’m sorry I thought wrong about Dad.’

      ‘Then as long as you think of him as your dad like he intended, I know he’ll forgive you. So how about putting the kettle on? I reckon we deserve a cup of tea after all that soul-searching. Only the little pot – and don’t go mad with the tea leaves.’

      Indiscriminate tea drinking was not to be encouraged on the miserly rations folk had to make do with, but tonight it was medicinal, Miriam Simpson decided.

      Nan lit the gas with a plop and put the kettle to boil, busying herself with cups and saucers and all the time thinking about that birth certificate and being stupid enough to land herself with another worry. Because being illegitimate was a worry, no matter which way her aunt put it.

      ‘Y’know – it’s like I said. Once I’m in uniform I’ll be the same as all the others, won’t I?’

      ‘You will, so don’t be going on about it. None of it was your fault.’ She picked up her knitting. ‘New beginnings for you, that’s what it’ll be. And shift yourself with that tea, lass!’

      ‘Mother?’ Hesitantly, Carrie Tiptree pushed open the kitchen door. ‘My, but something smells good.’

      ‘Very little meat and lots of onions.’ She said it without glancing up from the pan she was stirring.

      ‘Can’t wait. I’m ravenous. Any letters for me?’ She was amazed her voice sounded so normal.

      ‘There was nothing from Jeffrey, if that’s what you mean, Caroline. But I wrote to him today. I mean, someone has to tell him what you’re thinking of doing. He’s your fiancé – he has a right to know!’

      ‘But don’t you think you should have let me tell him? And yes, he is my fiancé, but he can’t forbid me to do anything. Not yet. And why is it so awful to think about joining up? Is it wrong, mother, to be patriotic?’

      ‘Patriotism is all very well, but it didn’t do a lot for your poor father, did it? But I don’t want to talk about it. I had my say last night and I won’t budge. You’re still a minor and I won’t give my permission for you to go.’

      ‘All right, then. But please, let’s not you and I quarrel. I’m sorry if I have upset you.’

      ‘Oh, I know you are, darling.’ Janet Tiptree was magnanimous in victory. ‘Just wait till the Government sends for you, eh? After all, you might well be married before your age group comes up for registration and married women can’t be made to do war work.’

      ‘They СКАЧАТЬ