It Had To Be You (6 page)

‘It was, but fortunately I was rescued by a copper.’

She stopped in her tracks. ‘Is that why you became a policeman?’

‘Yes. I decided I wanted to be there to help people when they were in trouble.’

Emma thought that was rather noble of him. ‘You’ve never wanted to be anything else?’ she asked.

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Now, why don’t you show me the ruins?’

Emma was happy to do so, because she would be away from prying eyes in the abbey grounds. Once there, she had the feeling that he wasn’t overly impressed with the ruins and was disappointed by his reaction.

‘When next you come to Liverpool, you should see St Luke’s, it’s a bombed-out church at the top of Bold Street,’ he said. ‘Its walls have been left standing as a memorial to the people of Liverpool who were killed during the Blitz.’

‘I’d like to see it,’ she said, finding it hard to believe it could possibly compare to her local ruined abbey.

‘Then perhaps we can make a date sometime and I can show you round Liverpool?’ said Dougie.

Emma flushed with pleasure. ‘I’d really like that. I’ll need your address, so as to let you know when I’m coming.’

‘Okey-doke!’ He took out pencil and notebook and wrote on a leaf of paper and handed it to her. ‘Is there anything else?’

Emma realised that they were back at the cottage and it was time for him to go. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘Can you tell me where the registry office is in Liverpool?’

He nodded. ‘There are two. I’ll show you when you come.’

Emma looked forward to keeping that date with him, but first she needed to write a letter to Mrs Gregory and post it as soon as possible.

‘Oh, hell!’ exclaimed Elsie Gregory, chewing on her lip.

Her hand shook as she reread the letter from Emma Booth and then her knees gave way and she had to sit down. How she wished her husband, Owen, was still alive, but he had died just over two and a half years ago of a muscular wasting disease. She had married his brother, Teddy, last year and she had never spoken to him about the troublesome times with her sister and the fact that Lizzie had a stepdaughter. Marrying Teddy had been a mistake, but when her son, Jared, had left to do his national service, something he had deferred until he finished his apprenticeship, she
had missed having a man about the place.

‘What’s up?’ asked Teddy, glancing up from an old American comic he had taken from a pile that he had found in a cupboard in Jared’s bedroom.

Elsie darted him a look. Lizzie had never liked Teddy but, after she had been killed in that terrible road accident here outside the house, her sister’s opinion of him had not seemed to matter when he had started visiting regularly to console her in her second bereavement. She had been glad of his company because she’d been in a bit of a state.

‘I’ve just received this letter,’ she said, then stopped, not knowing how to go on. Should she tell him or shouldn’t she? She remembered Owen saying that the rickets Teddy had suffered from as a child had not only stunted his growth but had affected him in other ways, too. He was certainly nothing like his brother: he had never had a long-term job, but a series of odd jobs, and she remembered Owen slipping him money, even when he could ill afford it when the children were younger and times hard. Before she had married Teddy she had felt sorry for him, reasoning that he could be forgiven in the circumstances for having a chip on his shoulder, but she hadn’t realised just how aggressive and bossy he could be at times. Owen had been the man for her and Teddy wasn’t a patch on him.

‘Well, spit it out, woman,’ he commanded.

Elsie took a deep breath. ‘Y-you remember our Lizzie’s husband, William Booth?’

Teddy’s eyes darkened. ‘Of course I bloody remember him. She would have married me if it weren’t for him getting in there first. I could never work out why she should want to marry a nancy boy artist.’

‘Well, I thought like you at first,’ said Elsie, fiddling with a corner of the letter, thinking he was kidding himself if he believed Lizzie would have ever married him. ‘I remember saying to her, “Who wants to buy pictures during a depression?” but actually he’d sold several pictures before she married him. We both knew his first wife, Mary. She used to lodge a few doors away from us when she was appearing in the theatre.’

‘I didn’t know he’d been married before!’

‘Yes, well, there were things our Lizzie wanted kept quiet. Anyway, as it turned out, not only did his pictures sell but his family had money. You’ll remember how nicely spoken he was. Not the least bit like some of those arty types our Lizzie used to mingle with.’ Elsie’s face softened with the reminiscence. ‘She loved the music hall – she once sang on a cruise ship with a girl who went and caught polio later.’

‘Will you get on with it, woman,’ snapped Teddy. ‘What’s all this got to do with the here and now?’

Elsie hesitated and there was a long silence
before she managed to say, ‘This letter is from William’s daughter from his first marriage. She wants to meet Betty and would like to get to know her. Apparently she only recently discovered that her father remarried. Her granddad died suddenly and she found a letter from our Lizzie, sent during the war, telling the girl’s grandmother about Betty and that William had been killed at Dunkirk.’

‘So what’s the problem?’ Teddy rustled the pages of the comic. ‘Is she asking to take Betty off your hands?’

‘I couldn’t just give our Lizzie’s daughter to a stranger,’ said Elsie, shocked.

‘You make it sound as if Betty’s only a little girl, but she’s fifteen, older than your Maggie.’

‘She doesn’t say anything about having her live with her,’ said Elsie. ‘Besides, Betty is settled in school here. It would be wrong to send her off somewhere else when she’ll be doing her school certificate next year and then she can get a job.’

‘I see.’ He smirked. ‘You’re thinking of her earning some money at last.’

Elsie flushed angrily. ‘That has nothing to do with it.’

‘No?’ He looked disbelieving. ‘Where does this girl live?’

‘In a village up Lancashire.’

He held out his hand. ‘Let’s see the letter.’

She hesitated before handing it over to him and
watched his lips move and his forefinger follow the first line of writing. Then he gave up and handed it back to her. ‘I can’t understand the girl’s writing. So what’s your problem?’

Elsie took a deep breath. ‘Money.’

Teddy stared at her. ‘What do you mean by money?’

‘William entrusted money to our Lizzie,’ she said in a low voice, glancing over her shoulder towards the door. ‘No lawyers involved. He wrote it in a letter and trusted her to do what was right for Emma. He wouldn’t have any truck with banks and kept his money in a safe in the house. After he was killed, she opened a bank account and in it went.’

His jaw dropped. ‘Bloody hell! What kind of sum are we talking about here?’

‘A lot.’ She paused and swallowed. ‘You know how ill Owen was and how he couldn’t work in the end. Well, our Lizzie was very fond of Owen. He was the brother she had never had, and she grieved to see him suffering and me so dragged down by it all, and with the kids to support.’

‘You don’t have to give me the whole sob story,’ growled Teddy, putting down the comic. ‘Get to the point!’

Elsie cleared her throat. ‘Lizzie suggested that we bought a big house and we all lived together. She would loan the money that was Emma’s to Owen
and she would provide the other half of the asking price out of her share of his money as his widow. She had actually managed to sell a couple more of his paintings after the war and that brought money in, too.’

‘She always did have it cushy,’ said Teddy, his eyes dark and resentful.

Elsie did not agree but did not say so. ‘It goes to show that she made the right choice when she married William, that’s all,’ she said, springing to her sister’s defence. ‘Anyway, Lizzie’s idea was that when the time came and the children left home, we’d sell this house and move to somewhere smaller. She would go up to Lancashire and see if Emma was still alive and give her the money that she was owed.’

‘Bloody hell, that’s complicated,’ said Teddy, rasping his fingernails on his unshaven jaw. ‘So you’ve known about this other daughter of William’s all this time. Why have you never mentioned her and why have you never told me about the house not belonging to you? Or does it belong to you now Owen and Lizzie are dead?’ His mud-coloured eyes raked her face.

‘It doesn’t, not really,’ said Elsie swiftly. ‘Anyway, getting back to my story. After Lizzie was killed, I was in no state to be worrying about William’s daughter, so I put her out of my mind and forgot about her. I thought it likely she was dead.’

‘You wanted to believe that,’ said Teddy, smirking.

Elsie went as red as a beetroot. ‘This is our home! How could I go selling it to hand money over to a stranger?’

Teddy stared at Elsie for what seemed a long time before saying, ‘I never thought you could be so devious. If I were you, woman, I’d ignore the bloody letter and get on with your life.’

‘You mean not even mention it to Betty?’

‘Of course bloody not,’ he said, sounding exasperated. ‘You know that girl is just like Lizzie, and once she gets something fixed in her head she won’t let it go. If she knows that she has a half-sister, she’ll want to meet her.’

Elsie dug her fingernails into her palm. ‘But it doesn’t seem right.’

He gave a nasty little laugh. ‘Not right, woman? Your conscience doesn’t seem to have bothered you much so far, if you’ve kept this from Betty all this time. Forget the other girl!’ He tore the letter in half and flung it on the fire.

Elsie made no effort to prevent the letter from turning into ashes, despite feeling sick with guilt. Knowing that Owen would never have countenanced his brother’s actions and would have been dreadfully disappointed in her, she told herself that she had to put her own family’s needs first.

Emma shifted the bucket with her foot a couple more inches to the right to catch the water that was leaking through the corner of the ceiling in her bedroom. She felt like screaming and made the decision that she would no longer put up with this inconvenience every time it rained. She would sell the furniture in her grandparents’ former bedroom and move her possessions into there. She didn’t know why she hadn’t done it before. Perhaps it was because it still felt very much their room. She hadn’t even felt up to getting rid of her grandfather’s clothes but decided she would do that tomorrow. Then, sometime during the coming week, she would visit the second-hand shop in
Clitheroe. The bedroom furniture was solid oak and well built and ten times better than the new utility stuff that was in the shops these days.

She went downstairs and switched on the wireless and had just settled in a chair with her knitting when she heard a tapping on the kitchen window.

‘Come in,’ she called, guessing it was Lila whom she had not seen for several days.

The door opened and in came her friend. ‘I had to come,’ said Lila, removing her dripping hat and placing it on the draining board. ‘I hear you had a gentleman caller last weekend.’

A smile lurked in Emma’s brown eyes. ‘You’ve taken your time coming to find out about him. I thought you’d have been here within hours once the news got round.’

‘I haven’t been well,’ said Lila, removing her raincoat and hanging it on one of the hooks on the wall. ‘I’ve had a cold and I didn’t want to give it to you.’ She pulled a chair up to the fire and sat down opposite Emma. ‘Was he your policeman?’

‘Aye.’

Lila linked her hands and placed them between her knees and leant forward with an eager expression on her face. ‘Tell me everything! What did he have to say?’

Emma told her the bare bones of her conversation with Dougie, and when she had finished, Lila said,
‘So what are you going to do?’

Emma set aside her knitting and put on the kettle. ‘I took Dougie’s advice and wrote a letter to Betty’s aunt, asking if I can see her.’

Lila smiled. ‘That makes sense. So this Dougie, will he be visiting you again?’

Emma’s eyes were dreamy as she murmured, ‘We’re planning to meet up next time I go to Liverpool, so I’m praying that I’ll hear back from Betty’s aunt soon.’

Lila wriggled her shoulders and said excitedly, ‘I bet you’re chuffed with him coming all this way to see you.’

‘Well, he didn’t have to come,’ said Emma.

‘No, so he must like you,’ said Lila. ‘So when will you be going to Liverpool?’

‘It depends on what the aunt has to say, and money. I’m still waiting for some response from my advertisement in the newspaper. I also need to get rid of Granddad’s clothes and some furniture, so I’ll have to go into Clitheroe and see a second-hand dealer.’

Lila’s eyes were instantly alert. ‘What furniture?’

Emma told her and Lila reacted by suggesting that she advertise the furniture for sale in the local newspaper, too.

‘But it’ll cost me more money to do that,’ said Emma reasonably.

‘But the dealer is bound to try and diddle you
because you’re a woman and a young, inexperienced one at that. You could get your money back by cutting out the middle man.’

Emma hesitated. ‘I’ll think about it.’

‘I could ask at work if anyone is after buying some bedroom furniture if you want me to,’ said Lila. ‘There’s not much to be had in the shops, and what there is isn’t quality stuff according to Mam. It seems to me that there’s always someone planning a wedding in our place, so you could be in luck.’

Emma’s face lit up. ‘Thanks! That sounds really promising. I’d appreciate you doing that, although I wouldn’t know how much to ask.’

‘Barter,’ suggested Lila. ‘Start at a price you’d like to get and then be prepared to lower it if they’re not prepared to pay it. It’s what Mam does when she has time off and we go to the market in Clitheroe.’

‘I’ll try it,’ said Emma firmly.

‘That’s the ticket,’ said Lila, glancing over Emma’s shoulder. ‘The kettle’s boiling, by the way.’

As Emma made the tea, Lila called over to her, ‘So is there anything else Dougie said that was interesting?’

‘He suggested that I open up my house after Easter to provide tea and scones and the like to day trippers,’ said Emma.

‘Blinkin’ heck! Your baking must have really
impressed him,’ said Lila, grinning. ‘But you’re not taking him seriously, are you?’

Emma was disappointed by her friend’s reaction, despite her own initial response to Dougie’s suggestion. ‘I’m sure he wasn’t joking, although, just like you, I have my doubts whether I could make it work. Then I remembered that my great-grandmother kept a shop and had a tea room here in this very house.’

‘You don’t say!’ exclaimed Lila, glancing about her.

‘My guess is that she probably only opened up the place as a tea room in the summer,’ said Emma, handing a cup of tea to her friend. ‘But she must have made some money from it to go to all that effort. If the weather was good, she’d have been able to put chairs and tables in part of the back garden. I’ve space to do that, despite the hens and the vegetable patch.’

Lila stared at her. ‘You’re beginning to believe that you could do what this Dougie suggested.’

‘Why not?’ Emma pursed her lips. ‘If I sell the furniture, there’s nothing stopping me starting off in a small way. I could start by putting out a couple of chairs and one table out front to attract passing trade. If I were able to earn more from my bookkeeping, as well, then maybe I could manage to get some repairs done to this cottage.’

‘You mean you’d set out a table on the pavement?’

‘Why not? I’ve seen pictures of that done in other places.’

Lila looked doubtful.

Emma sighed. ‘Anyway, I won’t be doing anything until Easter.’

During the next few days Emma made her plans and waited to see if they would come to fruition. She decided to do what Lila had suggested and placed an advertisement for the furniture in the FOR SALE column of the
Clitheroe Advertiser and Times
.

Another week trickled slowly by and it felt to Emma as if she was forever waiting for the postman to call. When at last someone came to view the bedroom furniture, she had still not received a reply to her letter from her half-sister’s aunt. She did not have much confidence in her bartering skills but the engaged couple who called at the house appeared just as inept as she was. Even so, a price was reached that satisfied the three of them. The husband-to-be promised to call round in a couple of days’ time with transport and the money.

He was as good as his word, and soon Emma was gazing about the empty space in the main bedroom and wishing she could afford to repaper the walls. Setting that thought aside, she knew that she was going to need help to move her furniture and bed into here. Perhaps if she dropped a few hints in church on Sunday, the verger might assist her. Until then she would stay put and write another
letter to Mrs Gregory. It was just possible that the first one had gone missing in the post.

The verger and his son were quite willing to shift furniture for Emma, and furthermore, the vicar spoke about arranging for her to visit a farmer out Wiswell way, who needed someone to sort out his paperwork for the taxman. Someone whose fee was not exorbitant. So a day later, Emma accompanied the vicar to the farm and came away with a battered account book and a couple of tins stuffed with invoices and bills of sale. Two days later, she had a response to her advertisement and visited a woman who had recently been widowed and left in sole charge of her husband’s small business. She told Emma that she was hopeless with figures and employed her on the spot.

As Easter came and went, bringing with it unseasonable weather, Emma filled in columns of figures and added and subtracted, trying to keep her mind on the job and not think too much about her plans for a tea room and the absence of a reply from Mrs Gregory.

The days passed, the weather improved and soon the hedgerows were fragrant with hawthorn blossom. Emma had still not heard a word from Mrs Gregory, or Dougie for that matter. She felt hurt where Dougie was concerned and annoyed with the woman who didn’t have the good manners to reply to her letter. She did not believe that both
her letters could have gone astray and came to a decision. Disguising her handwriting, in case Mrs Gregory should pick up the letter first, she penned another letter to her half-sister. She could only hope that, if the aunt did see the letter, then she would not notice the postmark. It was a chance she would have to take as she had no other option.