Home for Christmas (27 page)

‘There’s a custom that a guy sometimes gives his girl his graduation ring to wear on a chain round her neck. It signifies that they are a couple. I’d like you to have my ring, Tilly. That’s if you want to wear it.’

‘Oh, Drew.’ Tilly’s eyes shone like stars, and Drew held her closer. ‘Of course I want to wear it. You’re right though, Mum will only worry that we’re getting too serious too quickly if she knows. Besides,’ Tilly added with new emotional maturity, ‘some things should only be between us and for us, as a couple.’

It was over an hour later after the midnight carol service when they were all making their way back to number 13, that Tilly and Drew could finally take advantage of Olive being deep in conversation with Sergeant Dawson, who had come off duty in time to attend the service, to slow their walk to put some distance between themselves and the others. They were all heading for number 13, and the mince pies and sherry Olive had promised to celebrate both Christmas and Agnes and Ted’s engagement.

‘Keep still,’ Drew warned Tilly as he reached behind her to fasten around her neck the gold chain he had just slipped from the velvet pouch he’d had in his pocket.

The ring felt warm, warm and heavy and meaningful, a symbol of their private commitment to one another and the future they both knew they wanted to share, Tilly thought as she lifted it to her lips to kiss it, her fiercely passionate gaze fixed on Drew as she let the ring and chain disappear to hide beneath her blouse.

‘Tilly, come on, hurry up,’ Dulcie shouted back to them. ‘It’s gone midnight and I want to get back so that I can open my present from Wilder.’

‘Is there any news about the boy Barney, Sergeant Dawson?’ Olive asked. She suspected that Nancy would have something to say on Boxing Day about the fact that she had walked home from church with the sergeant, but Olive’s anxiety for the boy she had found in her kitchen was greater than her concern about Nancy’s meanness.

‘As it happens there is,’ Sergeant Dawson answered her. ‘I’ve had a few words here and there and it’s been agreed that the lad will come and live with me and Mrs Dawson. Of course, Mrs Dawson took a bit of persuading, but I reckon it will help cheer her up a bit having a young lad around, although I’ve warned him it will be straight back to the council if he gets himself into any trouble with the good folk of Article Row. ‘

‘Oh, I’m so pleased,’ Olive told him. ‘You’ve got just the right way with him, I think, and a boy like that needs that.’

‘Well, I don’t mind admitting to you that I’ve taken a bit of a liking to him. He’s got spirit and brains, even though he uses them for the wrong things at times. The lad’s never had what you’d call a proper home, by all accounts, and I reckon that now he knows that his dad will be able to find him, he’ll settle down a treat.

‘He’ll be coming home with me when I come off duty tomorrow morning. I’ve managed to persuade Mrs Dawson to let me put up a bit of a Christmas tree for him. There’s all our lad’s books and toys up in the attic still, but, well, naturally Mrs Dawson doesn’t like anyone touching his things, so I was glad of young Drew’s offer of the extra toys he’d got just in case there were more children at the party than expected. A nice lad, he is. The right sort and no mistake.’

‘I’m very pleased for you and Mrs Dawson, Sergeant,’ Olive said as they reached number 1.

‘It will do us both good. Perhaps breathe new life into the house and into us, having a lad around again. Not that young Barney is anything like our lad was, of course.’

‘Of course not,’ Olive agreed, understanding everything that the sergeant hadn’t said as well as everything that he had.

If she was surprised that Mrs Dawson seemed so ready to accept Barney then she certainly wasn’t going to say so to Sergeant Dawson and risk putting a shadow over his obvious happiness. She wasn’t Nancy with her acid comments, after all. Even so, she had to admit that she did have some misgivings about how it would all work out, given that Mrs Dawson had shut herself away from them all. But no, it was Christmas Day, a time for hope and belief and joy, not a time for doubt.

‘Happy Christmas, Sergeant,’ Olive smiled.

‘Happy Christmas, Mrs Robbins,’ he returned, and they exchanged smiles before Olive herded her group of young people together, urging them towards number 13.

‘I’m sorry about the doll and the pram, Ted,’ Agnes whispered humbly as they walked together.

‘It’s not your fault.’

‘Yes it is. I was the one who told Tilly about the girls wanting them.’

‘No, Agnes. That isn’t what I meant. What I meant is that it’s my fault that I couldn’t go to ruddy Harrods and buy them for them myself, just like I can’t afford to rent a better place for them and Mum, and like I can’t afford to give you a proper engagement ring.’

‘You are giving me a proper ring,’ Agnes protested emotionally. ‘I won’t have you saying any different. You’re giving me the only ring I want. Drew didn’t mean any harm,’ she told him, sensing his anger softening a little. ‘Tilly just told me that he asked his mum to send over some second-hand toys but she and her friends sent money instead, ’cos they feel guilty that we’re at war and they aren’t.’

‘When I saw that kid’s face when he unwrapped his train . . .’ Ted shook his head. ‘Always wanted an engine like that meself, I did. Of course, it was out of the question. That lad will never forget this Christmas and getting that train. I suppose I’m just feeling out of sorts because I wanted to be the one to give the girls their dolly and pram,’ he confessed reluctantly. ‘Makes me feel like a poor kind of brother not to be able to get them the Christmas present they wanted. They don’t ask for much, after all.’

‘Ted, you are the very best kind of brother, and when they grow up, it won’t be the dolly and the pram they remember, it will be the love you’ve given them and the hard work you’ve put into keeping your family together. There’s nothing more important than family, and knowing . . . knowing that you’re part of one.’

Hearing the sadness in her voice, Ted pulled her closer to him. ‘You have got a family, Agnes. Don’t you fret about that.’

‘I don’t think your mother likes me very much.’

Agnes was aghast at what she’d let slip out. Now Ted would be cross again.

But instead he simply pulled her even closer. ‘Ma isn’t always the easiest person to get along with. It’s on account of her losing Dad and worrying about losing the flat, and everything. But don’t you ever think that you don’t come first with me, Agnes, or that I don’t know how lucky I am to have you.’

Their quick awkward kiss snatched in the darkness might not have seemed romantic to anyone else but to Agnes it meant everything when she added it to what Ted had just said to her.

Everything was going to be all right. In fact, everything was going to be perfect.

In Ian Simpson’s front room, Sally smiled as she looked down into George’s sleeping face. As though he was conscious of her concentration on him, even in his sleep, he stirred and then opened his eyes, exclaiming in a confused voice, ‘Sally?’ and then groaning as he sat up and apologised, ‘I fell asleep, didn’t I? I’m sorry. We’d better get off to this party, hadn’t we?’

‘It’s a bit too late for that,’ Sally laughed. ‘It’s just gone midnight.’

When George looked even more abashed she told him softly, ‘It isn’t too late for this, though, or too early. In fact it’s exactly the right time. Happy Christmas, my dearest darling George,’ she told him. And then she kissed him.

It was a good ten minutes before they spoke again, George’s voice soft with love as he warned her, ‘This isn’t a good idea, you and me with the house to ourselves.’

‘I don’t think we’ll have it to ourselves for very much longer. The others will probably be back soon. Mind you, we ought really to go to number 13 and toast Ted and Agnes’s engagement.’

‘You should have woken me up earlier.’

‘I didn’t have the heart. You looked exhausted. You were fast asleep almost before you sat down,’ Sally laughed as he helped her on with her coat and they headed for the front door.

In the front room of number 13, Ted dropped down on one knee in front of Agnes the minute Olive had shown them in and closed the door, leaving them alone together.

Overwhelmed by such a romantic gesture, Agnes put her hands to her flushed face and whispered his name.

His hand trembling slightly, Ted removed the jeweller’s box from his trouser pocket and opened it, saying gruffly, ‘Agnes, will you do me the honour of—’

‘Oh, yes, yes, Ted, I will,’ Agnes breathed ecstatically, not allowing him to finish, but holding out her left hand instead so that Ted could slip the ring – ‘her’ ring – onto her finger.

Looking down at his downbent head with its mousy hair, Agnes felt a rush of love and pride. She was surely the luckiest girl in London tonight. She certainly felt as though she was.

Ted was getting to his feet, dusting down the knees of his trousers, even though, thanks to Olive’s excellent housekeeping, there wasn’t a speck of carpet fluff on them.

‘That’s that done then,’ Ted announced in a relieved and satisfied voice, before planting a smacker of a kiss on Agnes’s mouth. ‘It’s official now. You and me, we’re engaged.’

‘Yes.’ Agnes felt dizzy with delight.

Someone was knocking on the door, and then it opened to reveal Olive standing there with a tray of glasses of sherry, with Tilly, Dulcie and Sally crowded behind her.

‘Can we come in?’ That was Tilly.

‘Let me see the ring,’ Dulcie was demanding.

‘Agnes, you look so happy.’ Sally’s smile was calming and kind.

‘Congratulations, Ted. We wish you both every happiness,’ Olive announced, putting down the tray so that she could join the girls, who were all admiring Agnes’s ring.

The diamond was so small but very pretty, Olive thought, relieved that Dulcie for once had been tactful enough not to make the kind of Dulcie comment that could have hurt Ted’s pride and marred Agnes’s obvious joy. Watching Agnes reminded her so much of her own engagement, which had been here in this very house and in this very room, with her husband’s mother pursing her lips and looking rather critically at her.

‘To Ted and Agnes,’ Olive toasted once everyone had got a glass of sherry.

‘Ted and Agnes,’ everyone echoed. Then it was back to the kitchen for mince pies, warm from the bottom of the oven where Olive had slipped them, somehow managing to find room, despite the fact that the oven was almost filled by the turkey she’d put in when they had come back from church.

Watching Agnes finger her ring, a look of dreamy delight in her eyes, Tilly had to fight the temptation to touch Drew’s ring, where it hung from its chain concealed beneath her clothes.

George reached for Sally’s hand. If he’d had his way they’d have been celebrating their own engagement tonight, but of course Sally, being the wonderful caring person that she was, hadn’t wanted to steal Agnes’s limelight.

Never one to enjoy someone else being in the limelight, Dulcie seized the opportunity to open Wilder’s present to her. It was, after all, after midnight and Christmas Day. A satisfied smile curved her lips when she opened the gift-wrapped box to find inside it a shiny gold compact with a D picked out on it in sparkling brilliants. Inside, the compact had two compartments and a pretty swansdown powder puff. There was a lipstick case to go with it in exactly the same design. Dulcie, who knew exactly how much such luxuries cost, preened as she gave Wilder an approving smile. Hers would be the most expensive present any of them received, and it was only right that that should be the case. After all, she was the prettiest of all of them.

She bestowed another smile on Wilder as a reward for his generosity.

‘Happy Christmas, everyone,’ Drew toasted them all with the remains of his sherry.

‘Happy Christmas,’ they all chorused back, whilst Tilly gathered the girls together and whispered, ‘Let’s give the boys their stockings now, shall we?’

Dulcie rolled her eyes. Privately she had thought Tilly was being a bit babyish when she had first suggested that they should fill the stockings she had bought from the market with silly bits of nothing, but when Sally had laughed and nodded her head and Agnes had gone all soft and damp-eyed with emotion, Dulcie, not wanting to be the odd one out, had felt obliged to go along with Tilly’s plan.

It was Sally who volunteered to go upstairs and collect the stockings. She smiled tenderly to herself as she picked up George’s. Some things were beyond price, and now, in the privacy of her room, she used up a whole sheet of her precious writing paper to write: ‘To the man I love – I promise to visit you every time I have enough time off,’ and then adding several kisses and signing it, before folding it and placing it into a matching envelope, which she carefully sealed, writing George’s name on the front. She tucked the envelope as far down the stocking as she could amongst the other small gifts she had gathered: a book of poems, all penned by New Zealanders, she’d found in a second-hand bookshop; one of the packs of cards Tilly had generously shared with everyone, two sticks of liquorice – George’s favourite sweet treat – and, of course, the obligatory handknitted socks, nice and thick to warm his poor aching feet, along with one of Olive’s carefully hoarded apples.

Although she had been as quick as she could, Tilly was hopping impatiently from foot to foot by the time Sally returned downstairs, her arms piled high with the four well-stuffed stockings.