Maggie's Girl (12 page)

So Nanny knew about Ned Bradshaw and her mother. Sometimes Maggie felt as if she'd been the last one in the world to find out.

‘I didn't know anything about that when I was working here.' She'd been precisely what she appeared, a raw factory girl yet to find her feet. 

‘My mother should have told me!' she burst out, with a passion startling even herself.

‘Aye, well, the poor woman must have had her reasons. Perhaps she didn't want reminding.' The old head bent towards Maggie's.

‘Young Ned always was a wild one, but he'd have wanted to do right by your mother. His father was too big an obstacle.'

So it was Silas Bradshaw's fault!

Why hadn't she thought of that before? But she knew. Because she'd been too busy feeling slighted that Daisy hadn't told her the truth all these years.

At that moment Adèle returned, followed by Stamps and a tray of tea. There was even a plate of fancies made by the woman who came up from the town each day – Cook and the maids had left long since. Only Stamps and Stokes, too old for active service, remained from Maggie's time.

She stood up, looking round at the comfy sofa, the walnut writing desk, the table crammed with pictures of Ned and Clifford.

They sat talking over old times until Nanny's eyes began to close and her head nodded. Adèle rescued her teacup, leaving her to doze quietly in the winter sunshine.

‘I'd best go.' Maggie rose to her feet. ‘No, thank you, I don't need the car. Thank you for doing this.' She smiled at her
grandmother
, cast a last glance at Nanny, snoozing peacefully, and ran back down to the hall.

‘Maggie?' The familiar voice stopped her in her tracks, and Silas came hurrying out of his study, where he'd been sitting with the door wide.

‘You must go home in the car.'

‘I'll walk, thank you, Mr Bradshaw.'

‘“Mr” Bradshaw still, Maggie?'

‘I can hardly call you Grandfather!'

‘But that's who I am.'

She regarded him steadily, and wished her feelings towards him weren't so ambiguous. He was far too pleased with himself, and wanted his own way too strongly. And yet …

She'd worked on the wards, she knew which patients needed more reassurance, an intuition Sister Aspen believed made her a good nurse. Her every intuition was telling her that under this fierce and confident surface was a surprising vulnerability.

Her professional eye noted, too, his high colour.

‘Are you feeling quite well?' she asked.

‘Of course!' he blustered. ‘Why shouldn't I be?'

‘I'm sorry, it's really none of my business.'

‘Oh, Maggie, of course it's your business!' His eyes searched her face, seeing Ned in its every line and contour.

‘I'm better for seeing my granddaughter,' he added.

‘I used to work for you once!' she reminded him. Why must he keep on about the family connection.

‘Fiddlesticks, woman! We must put that behind us and start again.'

‘Forget who I was?' She raised an eyebrow. She'd have this out with him once and for all.

‘You didn't want me then!' she pointed out.

They both knew if Silas had still had his sons, he'd be looking to a different kind of future. What would he have wanted then with a factory girl's lass?

At least he didn't try to deny it.

‘I didn't know the circumstances,' he muttered. ‘You're being unfair! Why didn't your mother tell me?' He paused, rubbing his hand through his thick shock of hair.

‘I'd have done what I could! Do you think I was so
hard-hearted
I'd have left her alone at such a time?'

Something Nanny had said sprang into her mind.

‘But your own son couldn't come to you! It made me mam think she wasn't good enough. She was ashamed to tell you!'

She was surprised to see Silas looking suspiciously moist eyed.

‘We all make mistakes.' Silas moved closer, gazing resolutely into her face. ‘I made one, and I've suffered for it, but – dash it all, Maggie, I'm sorry!'

His words took them both by surprise – he'd touched a chord in his granddaughter, and he knew it. His fierce eyes held hers.

‘I never wanted you to suffer,' she answered steadily, a match for him in every way he admired.

A great swell of pride rose in Silas's breast. She was a Bradshaw!

‘You're sure there's nothing I can do for you?' His voice
softened
.

How sorry for himself he looked! She shook her head. Then she felt a bubble of joy rising within her.

What she said next amazed them both.

‘There is something you can do. Shut your eyes to what I do next – Grandfather.'

‘Look who I've found on the doorstep!' Daisy ushered the young, touchingly uniformed figure into the living-room where Holly was busy setting the table for tea. They'd just got back from the hospital.

Holly spun round, her eyes widened in astonishment.

‘Alec!' she cried.

‘Pleased to see me?' He was grinning idiotically.

‘You'll stop and have a bit of tea, lad?' Daisy's brows knitted as she worked out the rations. Maggie would be eating at the hospital when her shift allowed. Peter wasn't coming until later, so—

‘Harry, nip upstairs and fetch down one of those tins of fruit, there's a good lad.'

Daisy didn't often dip into her emergency store, laid down with foresight, but this was an emergency.

‘I don't want to put you to any trouble, Mrs Bridges.' Alec smiled.

‘It's no trouble, son. As if we can't feed one of our own brave lads!'

She thought briefly of Billy – but Billy was a brave lad, too, working long, dangerous hours down the mine, standing up for his beliefs whatever other folk might think.

Daisy went through into the kitchen and began the perplexing business of eking out tea for one more healthy appetite.

‘Why didn't you say you were coming?' Holly was still standing with the milk jug in her hand.

‘Twenty-four-hour pass,' he explained sheepishly. ‘Besides, I wanted to surprise you …'

How tall he was – how handsome! Colour stained Holly's cheeks.

She didn't feel spoony about him, so why was her heart
fluttering
as if it had taken on a life of its own? Then she laughed. It was only Alec, after all. She'd been surprised.

‘How long have you got? Are you going back to Scotland? How's training? Goodness, Alec, I bet your parents were glad to see you …' She was off, firing questions so rapidly that he couldn't keep up. After a while, he didn't even try.

‘My posting's come through,' he told her quietly when finally
he could get a word in edgeways. ‘The Sherwood Foresters. It means action, I should think!'

He pulled out a chair and sat down, his face shining with enthusiasm.

‘I mean to volunteer for the Commandos eventually of course, but this'll do.'

Holly's eyes grew serious.

‘Don't worry!' He'd guessed her thoughts, a habit of which he was altogether too fond. ‘Holly … you know me … I'll always think safety first. You know it's what I want.'

‘You'd better duck, Browning!' She made a joke of it, not knowing how else to handle things. What else could she say? Tell him she'd realised suddenly this really was a war?

Some of the joy had gone out of the evening with his news, much as she tried to pretend otherwise. Alec knew it, too; she was aware of his eyes, serious and a little puzzled as they ate the tea Daisy had conjured up.

She'd done him proud, even if the inevitable tin of Spam featured in the meal.

Granddad arrived next from the Home Guard meeting, picking good-naturedly at the remains of the meal, pumping Alec about the war and what he thought of the situation now Singapore had fallen – as if, in uniform, Alec's words held extra weight.

Perhaps they did. Alec did seem different. Or was Holly the one who'd changed?

She was relieved when it was time for the bus, and a chance to get him alone. With indecent haste, she fetched their coats, ignoring Harry's smirk.

‘Is everything all right?' Alec asked quietly, as soon as they'd let themselves out into the dark street.

She nodded unhappily. The night was pitch black, and freezing already. They walked on with the muffled shapes of the houses as their guide, Alec's Army boots clattering beside her, comforting somehow.

You'd never guess Castle Maine was below, with no sign of a light. How Holly hated the black-out!

He took her hand, plunging it into the pocket of his greatcoat, keeping it warm, and her heart, too.

‘Alec, look after yourself.' That was what it boiled down to. ‘You'll be so far away …'

Misery engulfed Holly suddenly. Alec inhabited a world so unlike her own, a grown-up one she longed to be part of.

His next words filled her with wonderful, trembling hope.

‘I can't stop thinking about you, Holly.'

He stopped in the road and pulled her close. A little clumsily, she leaned into him, tilting her head as his lips came down on hers, tentatively at first and then, finding them delightfully
unresisting
, with a growing passion and hunger, unnerving them both.

Holly's head began to spin, her every sense caught up in his. To her giddy mind, they seemed no longer Alec and Holly, young and unsure of their feelings, but one hot and searing emotion reaching out in darkness …

‘No! Alec, we mustn't—'

She found sense from somewhere and pushed him away, her eyes wide, part of her longing for him to kiss her again. He did, but gently this time, lingeringly.

Where had this come from? What were these feelings? She'd never felt like this about John!

‘I'm sorry.' But he didn't sound at all contrite.

‘Don't be.' She was painfully shy now, wondering what he
could possibly see in her, still at school, still stuck in Castle Maine. How impossible it was!

She could already hear the bus.

‘Alec, when will I see you again?' Her voice was urgent.

‘Soon. I'll write—'

He kissed her once again fiercely as the bus drew up, two pinpricks of blue light visible from the shrouded headlights. And then he was gone, leaping up the few steps. The bus drove off, swallowed up instantly into darkness.

Holly's heart went with it, every yard of the way.

‘There! That should brighten things up a little!'

Maggie spun round from the bedside table where she'd just arranged a glorious bunch of bright daffodils. These flowers, together with the two darling little babies in the cot at the foot of the bed, should cheer Mary up, if anything could.

The ward was quiet, sunk in the torpor of early evening.

‘But where did they come from, our Maggie?' Mary was sitting up, fastening her bed-jacket, a little colour in her cheeks for once, watching Maggie with a curiosity it did her sister good to see.

‘You'll never believe it!' Maggie chuckled as she sat on the bed, taking Mary's hand.

‘Would you believe – Silas Bradshaw?'

‘Your grandfather!' Mary's face expressed incredulity. ‘But I thought …'

Maggie laughed out loud, remembering Silas's face.

‘I'd been up to the house to see Nanny Coates,' she explained. ‘He wanted to send me home in the car, but I said I'd rather walk. He asked if there was nothing at all he could do, and he looked so very sorry for himself—'

Mary suddenly understood.

‘Maggie, you didn't!'

‘Mary I did!'

The two sisters fell into each other's arms, laughing.

‘All his beautiful daffodils – on the verges, all the way up the drive … two armfuls! I took some for Mam, filled every vase in the house and one from next door.'

Maggie could still see those two ribbons of gold edging the drive, where the sweeping lawns had been laid down to
vegetables
. What must Mam have thought?

‘Our Maggie's gone soft!' Mam would say, though touched. Maggie, who'd never bought her mother flowers, had suddenly desperately wanted to. The sight of Silas's daffodils had simply proved too much!

‘But what on earth did Silas say?' Mary asked, wide-eyed with enjoyment.

‘He didn't get the chance! I was gathering them up, and it was too late.'

She'd shocked him, but then he'd started to laugh, the great Silas Bradshaw, standing at his door, hands on hips, urging her on. She'd rarely seen him laugh before.

‘Oh, our Maggie!' Mary wiped the tears from her eyes. ‘I wish I'd been there, too!'

‘Maggie! There you are.'

A man's voice. Maggie looked up sharply, and Mary, after one glance at the door, gazed back at her sister.

Maggie looked surprised, disbelieving, and then simply joyful.

There in the doorway was Dr Andrew Hardaker, looking at her with a longing he wasn't quite astute enough to hide.

‘W
atch that butter, our Maggie!' Her precious ration! Daisy Bridges tut-tutted. She was deftly slicing bread, Maggie buttering, too generously to her mother's mind, before spreading the potted meat Daisy had managed to exchange for three eggs in the shop that morning. The eggs from Peter's hens were proving a real boost.

‘It is the twins' first birthday,' Maggie reminded her gently, as a piercing shriek arose from the front room, and they both laughed.

‘I wonder what our Holly's up to this minute!' she mused, concentrating hard.

‘It's probably a good thing we don't know.' Daisy knocked the crumbs from the bread-board, unable to think of their Holly in the ATS, in London on her own.

She returned the loaf to the bread-bin and filled the sink with hot water from the kettle.

‘You were saying – about Andrew?' She shot Maggie a keen glance.

‘He phoned me this morning.' Maggie was for some reason absorbed in arranging the sandwiches.

She took a deep breath, turning to her mother. It was
increasingly
hard to keep anything from Mam nowadays, but in any case, she needed to talk.

‘He should be home tomorrow, all being well.'

‘You two seem to be getting quite thick.' Daisy plunged her hands into water.

‘It seems that way. I mean, I think he likes me, Mam, but he's not exactly said so!'

She knew the doctor liked her, of course, from the looks she sometimes caught, the way he spoke to her – almost as if he was talking to himself. What, heaven forbid, if she was imagining it?

She stopped what she was doing, thinking about Andrew Hardaker in general and where exactly this was going. How could she know what he was thinking when he wouldn't tell her?

‘And how do you feel about him?' Daisy propped a plate on the draining-board to dry. It seemed an odd thing to her, Maggie and the doctor. Times were changing, and that was a fact.

Maggie leaned back against the sink, arms folded.

‘I like him a lot, Mam,' she answered truthfully.

There was nothing to dislike – a good man doing his bit for the war. But as to anything else – they were great friends. Why spoil it?

‘I suppose I've been a bit too much on my own,' she mused. ‘Bringing the children up alone – it's made me too independent.'

Her mother glanced at her.

‘Isn't it time you learned to depend on someone else?'

They looked at each other, and suddenly Maggie smiled, a great rush of love for this bright, energetic little woman flooding through her. How grateful she was things between them had changed for the better!

‘Any scraps going for Dolores?' Peter appeared from the yard with a bundle of kindling.

‘Under the sink.'

Dolores, the large, vicious-tempered pig housed next to the hen-coop up at Maggie's, was an animal they'd all learned to their cost to treat with respect.

‘You're never going up there now?' Daisy chided. ‘Go and give our Mary a hand. It sounds like she could do with it.'

The screams from the front room were reaching boiling point. Peter didn't need telling twice.

In the front room, he set the sticks by the fire, then lifted Eddie from his high-chair and swung him round until the little boy screamed with delight.

‘And how's young fellow-me-lad?'

He popped him back in the chair, then stooped and ruffled Mattie's hair. The little girl stared haughtily at her grandfather through wide blue eyes. Already she was the bossy half of the partnership.

‘She'll be a heart-breaker, this one,' Peter chuckled.

Mary was at the mirror, fretting she'd no clip to tidy her hair. Something else impossible to get hold of! And as for these thick stockings – she looked down at her legs ruefully! She wouldn't have been seen dead in such things once upon a time.

Her gaze returned to the mirror, fastening on the twins'
reflection
, and her heart filled with a rush of love.

‘You'll spoil them, Dad.'

‘Aye, and I'm not the only one.'

Mary had transformed herself into a doting mother, but Peter saw there were dark circles under her eyes.

There was no doubt the twins were proving a handful, but he knew instinctively something else was bothering her, too – had been for a while.

‘Fretting over John,' was Daisy's conclusion. Poor lad, in the thick of it, hardly seeing his children …

Peter only wished he could help.

‘Is everything all right, love?' he enquired tentatively, and was dismayed to see the hard, bright Mary of old return instantly.

‘Why, what do you mean?'

‘You mustn't be too disappointed if John hasn't been able to get over here.' He was probing, clumsily, perhaps, but he was only saying what they all thought. The lad should be overjoyed to have two such bonnie children.

‘I never said I was.' His daughter turned back to the mirror with a pout.

‘It's not his fault he's hardly seen his own bairns.' He stood beside her, warming himself at the fire. Something was wrong. He could see it a mile off!

‘There's a war on, Dad, remember?' Mary stared hard into the mirror, remembering the last time she'd seen John. Six – seven weeks ago?

He hadn't been expected. No one knowing the circumstances could possibly have blamed John Bertram if he'd never wanted to see her or the twins again.

He'd stood in their tiny flat, looking down at the pair of them, fast asleep, with such an odd expression on his face.

Mary knew exactly what he was thinking – if only they were his! Why didn't he pick them up, hold them?

He'd moved away suddenly, flinging himself down in the armchair, removing himself from temptation, it seemed.

‘How are you?' he asked, looking at her at last.

‘All right, John. I – how are you?'

All the things she'd wanted to say to him, and she couldn't say one! John was the one wronged; the one who had to decide where they went from here.

‘About this other man,' he began at last. The one thing he wanted to ask! Mary's heart sank.

‘Laurence was never the man for me, John. He's at a different RAF station now. He doesn't even know about the twins – I never told him.' She paused.

‘It was – madness, that's all. If it weren't for them—' she gazed at the babies ‘—I'd wish it had never happened.'

What good would it have done to tell him, after all? But John wouldn't meet her eyes, and Mary had turned away, wanting nothing more than to fling her arms around him and tell him she was sorry….

Her hands were trembling now. She gave her hair a final pat and turned back to her father, doing her best to smile.

‘Aye, well, fatherhood can be a bit of a shock,' Peter observed. He tried to convince himself this must be the problem – John was taking a while to adapt to being a father.

‘Not long now.' Maggie came through with the sandwiches. ‘Mam's put the kettle on.'

‘We've only dried milk left!' Daisy called from the kitchen. What was she to do about the trifle? She stood, hands on hips, by the pantry door, looking about her helplessly.

‘Will this do, Mam?' She turned to see their Billy, the very last person she'd expected, grinning sheepishly and pulling two precious tins of peaches from his coat pocket.

‘Surprised to see me?'

‘Of course I'm not!' She stopped, blushing, unable to lie. Of course she was surprised! The way things were between him and his father, Billy was the last person she'd expected to see.

‘You didn't really think I'd miss the twins' first birthday party?' He dropped a light kiss on her cheek, looking pleased with himself.

‘Oh, lad, I am glad you've come.'

All the same, she glanced nervously towards the living-room.

‘Remember telling me one of us has to be big enough to make the first move?' he reminded her gently. ‘I've missed him, Mam!'

‘He's missed you, too.'

If only Peter wasn't too stubborn to admit it! She could only watch, heart thumping, as her youngest child braced his shoulders, winked broadly and stepped past her to face his father.

‘What the blue blazes!' Silas Bradshaw erupted from his study, a blur of fury. The group of boys taking it in turns to slide down the ornately carved banister into the hall quietened immediately as he stormed to a halt, face red with anger.

‘Ah, there you are, dear.' Adèle, who had been expecting this all morning, appeared instantly, gliding downstairs to take control. The boys were sent scattering in one direction and Silas gently but forcefully propelled towards the drawing-room.

‘How much longer must we put up with this?' he snapped.

‘Only a day or two more, dear,' she soothed. Castle Maine Grammar was on holiday for a week, leaving the evacuees with nothing to do but irritate her husband. She'd been worried about Silas's nerves all week.

‘Blasted boys should be outside where they belong!'

‘Darling, it's raining. How can they?'

‘Fiddlesticks! When did a drop of rain hurt? I was never such a namby-pamby child …'

The thought of Silas as any sort of child! Suppressing the smile that would only have inflamed the situation, she steered him into his favourite chair, relieved him of his stick and kissed his cheek, all in the smooth movement that denoted years of
practice. She received a cold and furious stare for her pains, but that was Silas. She was used to it.

Stamps had lit the fire earlier. A good blaze burned in the grate, and she stood watching it as he relaxed into the chair. When the high colour left his face, she breathed a sigh of relief.

‘I'll make us some tea,' she suggested gently.

‘Ring for Stamps!' he barked, instantly jerking upright. ‘I pay him enough, don't I?'

His lack of thought suddenly irritated Adèle.

‘Of course I must make the tea! In case you've been too busy to notice, dear, Stokes is getting old, too! This place is too much for one man to cope with alone.'

‘Stokes, then.'

‘Stokes has his hands full with the garden.'

‘The daily?' he offered.

‘Silas!'

He smiled at her sweetly.

‘I do love a woman with a temper,' he growled.

He'd wrapped her round his little finger, as usual. The man was incorrigible!

‘This place is too much though, Silas,' she coaxed, seizing her courage in both hands.

‘What do you expect us to do? Move?'

Precisely what she wanted. The most she could hope for at this stage was to sow a seed or two of doubt, and wait.

She moved behind his chair, partly so he shouldn't see her face, partly because she loved to run her hands through his hair, thick and abundant as it ever was. He leaned back, enjoying it.

‘Poor Stamps, Silas,' she wheedled.

‘Poor Stamps, fiddlesticks! What are you up to, Adèle?' He turned, looking into her face.

‘Aren't you happy?' His voice was deceptively soft – she should have been warned.

‘Don't be such an old grump, darling.' She took his hand. ‘And stop looking for compliments! How could I fail to be happy? You know how much I love you.'

She was surprised to find her hand seized in a grip of iron.

‘Do you think I don't know?' His gaze lingered on hers,
deepening
to something that took her breath away.

‘I love you, too.' A slow smile curled his lips. ‘Don't you ever forget it.'

How could any woman forget being loved by Silas Bradshaw?

As if he read her thoughts, he smiled smugly and released her, satisfied.

‘Go and make some tea, woman,' he barked. The twinkle was back in his eye. The moment, whatever had occasioned it, was gone.

Adèle went to put the kettle on, her heart overflowing. Silas loved her, and that was enough. It had always been enough.

The siren had just gone again. Stumbling along the little street on the way back to barracks, Holly Bates gazed up at the two wide arcs of yellow light already sweeping the sky. The moon was out, there were a few bright stars and the cold took her breath.

She stopped, listening intently to the rumble of planes. Just about overhead. Bombers?

The sound of the Ack-Ack guns told her exactly which. Cursing her luck with words Daisy Bridges would have been shocked to hear on her granddaughter's lips, Holly felt her way along the rough stonework. Some nights the fires lit by falling bombs were so bright that it was more like day.

All at once there came a whistling and whooshing. An
incendiary bomb tumbled from the heavens, then another, the sounds merging. She hugged the wall, her eyes squeezed tight shut, her body braced for impact.

There was a roar, a screaming. The ground shook.

Streets away; she'd been lucky. She straightened up, sucking in air, relieved to be still in one piece. She remembered the shelter at the end of the road, a complicated structure made of several Andersons bolted together. Most residents preferred the five-minute walk to the Underground, but she hadn't the time.

She hurtled through the doorway as another bomb hit, its force hurling her to the floor.

She scrambled up, a tangle of gas mask and Army shoulder bag, retrieving her tin hat, which had blown off. Too close for comfort, that one….

At that moment, the burly shape of a man stumbled through the door. He stood swaying, pulling a box of matches from the pocket of his coat and striking one, cupping his hands around the flame.

‘Who 'ave we 'ere, then?'

Holly moved backwards, feeling the cold rim of the shelter against her back, stale fumes of alcohol drifting towards her. He lurched forward, his hand gripping her wrist and yanking her towards him.

Abruptly, the iron grip released, catapulting her backwards just as her assailant was sent spinning. He almost fell, recovered, and fled out into the night.