The Accidental Family (34 page)

“Yes, darling?” Sophie stifled a yawn.

“Who is Seth really?” Bella asked her. “Why is Daddy helping that Wendy woman, who you don’t like and neither do I?”

“I wouldn’t say I don’t like Wendy,” Sophie said cautiously. “I
don’t really know her that well. It’s just that sometimes you meet someone and you don’t really get on with them. I’m sure Wendy is a nice person really to …to some people.”

“But why is Daddy bringing us all up to London to find Seth if he’s got nothing to do with us? He is a grown-up, he probably doesn’t need finding.”

“Well, sometimes grown-ups need looking after too,” Sophie said, noting Bella’s thoughtful expression with weary dismay. It meant that, unlike her sister, the child was not at all sleepy. She was in a questioning mood. And that in turn meant Sophie was either going to have to go against Louis and tell Bella the truth about Seth or lie to Bella and risk losing her trust forever.

“But why is Daddy helping Wendy, because they weren’t even friends before a week ago and you and Daddy were doing the wedding and now no one is talking about the wedding and Daddy is helping that Wendy woman and I don’t understand why.”

Sophie closed her eyes; it was warm and cozy in the double bed, snuggled in between the two children. It would be so easy to simply close her eyes and drift off to sleep with her girls in her arms, but she had to find a way to answer Bella, otherwise she knew the little girl would be staring at the ceiling in the lamplight, keeping herself awake with wondering.

“Well, you know my mummy,” Sophie began a little uncertainly.

“
Yes.
” Bella seemed equally skeptical about the direction the conversation was taking.

“She loves me and worries about me a lot, even though I am properly grown up. And Wendy is Seth’s mum and she worries about him too even though he’s an adult, because mummys never stop worrying about their children, not ever. And poor Seth is feeling angry and worried and upset and Wendy hasn’t really had a chance to talk to him, and see if he’s okay. And sometimes when
you’re worried you need another person, a friend, to help you get through it. I know Daddy and Wendy haven’t been friends for a long time, but really good friendships never fade away, they last for years and years even if you never see the person, because you know how much you care about them, come what may. Like your mummy was …is still my best friend, because even though I’ll never see her again, I won’t forget how much I love her.”

“So does Daddy love that Wendy woman?” Bella asked, looking alarmed.

“No, no, he cares about her and that’s why he’s helping her.” Sophie hoped she was right about that. “He’s being kind.”

“And that’s the only reason?” Bella scrutinized her, her dark eyes quizzical.

“Yes,” Sophie confirmed uncomfortably.

She watched the frown between Bella’s eyebrows relax as she turned her body toward Sophie and rested her head on Sophie’s shoulder. Bella trusted whatever Sophie told her.

“Can you stay here and sleep with us tonight?” Bella asked. “Like I sometimes used to sleep with you on the sofa in your flat and we’d listen to the sound of the traffic and pretend it was the sea, remember?”

“Yes, I remember,” Sophie said, feeling guilty that it was her half-truths that had soothed Bella at last. “And yes, I’ll sleep here with you two tonight. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

Seventeen

Sophie knew she was doing the right thing by taking Bella and Izzy to see their grandmother when they were up in London, but she had been glad to leave Mrs. Stiles’s flat, even though she suspected this might be the last time the girls would see her. Mrs. Stiles had deteriorated since the last time Sophie had seen her.

Although the children loved their grandmother and were always delighted to see her, Sophie noticed that they changed whenever they were around her. Subtle differences. Izzy’s natural ebullience ebbed away, and the bright, curious spark that was always present in Bella’s eyes dimmed. They instinctively adjusted their behavior to fit in with the kind of woman she was, a woman who, Carrie always said, thought that enjoying life too much was a sin. Mrs. Stiles was always very sweet with the girls, pouring them the ancient lemon-barley water she kept just for their visits and giving them boiled sweets.

As Sophie watched her give each child two sweets, she tried to
reconcile this thin, fragile woman with her bold and beautiful daughter. Carrie had fought almost all of her life against the emotionally repressive atmosphere her mother had brought her up in, determined that her daughters should have the childhood that she didn’t, one full of laughter, fun, and freedom. And so although it was Sophie’s duty to take the children to visit Mrs. Stiles as often as possible, there was something about the sound of the ticking clock in the silent living room and the dustless china figurines that paraded along the mantelpiece, Victorian dancing ladies swirling to music only they could hear, that made her think of Carrie’s longing to be free.

To the delight of the children, Mrs. Stiles brought out her tin of vintage buttons, which she had been collecting since she was a girl, and put it on the table for the girls to play with. They would make pictures with the buttons, or host button balls, picking out the finest and glitteriest buttons and naming them princes and princesses.

“And how is he?” Mrs. Stiles asked her, referring to Louis as she and Sophie watched the girls from the small kitchenette.

“He’s well, thank you,” Sophie said. It was all she ever said. Carrie’s mother had always disapproved of Louis, even before he’d found out about Carrie’s affair and run away to Peru. But after that point she had him down as a weakling and a coward and barely bothered curbing her tongue for the sake of the children. If she found out about Seth, their engagement, or the baby, Sophie wasn’t sure how she’d react. Carrie used to tell dark, Gothic tales of her mother losing her temper, shouting and screaming and locking Carrie in her room for hours on end, but Sophie was never sure how much of that was Carrie’s love of a good tale and how much was based on fact.

“And you and he still …?” Mrs. Stiles never liked to refer to Sophie’s relationship with Louis directly either.

Sophie nodded, suspecting that now was not the ideal time to discuss their ups and downs, not that she’d dream of talking them over with Mrs. Stiles anyway. She watched as Carrie’s mother warmed the pot before pouring boiling water onto loose tea leaves, and compared her to Grace Tregowan. Mrs. Stiles had to be at least fifteen or even twenty years younger than Grace, but Sophie could no more imagine Mrs. Stiles having four husbands than she could imagine Mrs. Tregowan ever bothering to warm a teapot when one-cup tea bags were so much quicker. Old age is not a great leveler, Sophie realized. It doesn’t gently usher you into an age of peace and reflection when somehow your heart and mind are cocooned from the world, at least not unless you let it.

For Mrs. Tregowan old age meant living in hopes of husband number five. For Mrs. Stiles there was only quiet respectability, waiting out the last of her days without a hope of a final swan song, or any last railing against the fate that took her daughter from her before she ever really knew her.

“Still working, is he?” Mrs. Stiles asked as she stirred the tea leaves around in the pot.

Sophie nodded. “Yes, the photography business is doing really well now.”

“He did well out of Carrie,” Mrs. Stiles observed bitterly. “Her death set him up nicely.”

“The girls got the security of a home and he got to set up a business that meant he’d be able to look after them. It’s no more than Carrie would have wanted,” Sophie said, lowering her voice, keeping an eye on the girls in case they were listening. Fortunately they both seemed entirely absorbed in the world of buttons. She watched Mrs. Stiles’s hand tremble as she poured a cup of pale-looking tea into a fine bone china cup.

“And how are you?” Sophie asked her, forcibly brightening her voice as she took the cup and saucer. “Are you keeping well?”

“I’ll be gone soon,” Mrs. Stiles said, looking into the living room where the girls were chattering, their heads bent together over the mosaic of buttons.

“All I want to know is that those two are properly settled, properly cared for by someone I can trust not to disappear.” Mrs. Stiles turned to look Sophie up and down and gestured at the ring that Sophie hadn’t thought to hide. “You marry him, you’ll be a mother to them like Carrie was. And you promise me that even when that one comes along, you will treat them exactly the same way that you do now, that you will never make them feel left out in the cold or alone?” Mrs. Stiles nodded at Sophie’s stomach, lowering her voice as she spoke.

“That one? You mean? Oh no, I’m not …” Sophie stopped, caught under Mrs. Stiles’s steady gaze. “No one knows,” she whispered. “No one.”

Mrs. Stiles nodded. “It’s not as if I’m going to tell anyone, so you’ve no worries there.”

“Thank you,” Sophie said, briefly pressing the palm of her hand against her belly, an unconscious protective gesture.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think since Carrie went.” Mrs. Stiles kept her voice low. “I wasn’t a good mother, perhaps I was never supposed to be either a mother or a wife. I drove her father away because I was never content, and after he’d gone I constantly tried to pin Carrie down, to trap her like a butterfly—but what for? I’m glad she fought me and had the life she wanted, even if it was difficult sometimes, and I’m glad she gave those girls all the spirit and fire and imagination that she got from somewhere, though God knows it wasn’t me. She’s gone now, and soon I will be, and as far as I’m concerned you are the only person those girls can rely on—”

“Mrs. Stiles, really, Louis is not like that—”

“No, let me finish. I don’t know what he’s like or what he’s not like and I don’t want to know. But what I do know is that at
the first sign of trouble, he ran out on Carrie and the children. Perhaps she deserved it, but those girls didn’t. And if he can do it once, he can do it again. So you marry him, you have that …” Mrs. Stiles nodded once more at her stomach. “But you look after my grandchildren, you swear to me that you will always look after them.”

“I swear,” Sophie said, reaching out to touch Mrs. Stiles’s brittle shoulder. “I swear to you, the same way I swore to them, they will always have me. Always, forever, whatever.”

Mrs. Stiles inclined her head. “Thank you,” she said. “That comforts me.”

Sophie placed her hand gently over her abdomen. “How did you know about this?”

“Just being old,” Mrs. Stiles said, treating Sophie to a rare smile. “You get to my age and there’s not much gets past you. Besides, you’ve got that look about you, you look like a mother.”

Sophie pressed her lips together hard, determined not to cry now before the very person who would appreciate it the least. It was the only tribute she knew she could pay to this woman she understood so very little.

“Just make sure he looks after you the way he never looked after my Carrie,” Mrs. Stiles said, patting Sophie on the back of her hand, fully appreciative of her determination not to let her emotions show. “Don’t let him run out on you.”

When it was time to go, Mrs. Stiles delighted the girls by allowing them to take the ancient tin of buttons away with them. “When I was your age, I used to play with these for hours and hours with your great-aunty Evie, just like you two do. And your mother used to play with them too when she was little,” she said as she solemnly gave the tin to Bella, whose expression was wide-eyed as she received the treasure. “Some buttons in here belonged to my grandma, which makes them a hundred years old.”

“That’s as old as God, nearly!” Izzy breathed in wonderment.

“Well, not quite, but anyway, you promise me that you will take care of them and that you will never lose them, and that when you see or find a very interesting or special button that you will add it to the tin. And then one day you will be able to pass it on to your children.”

“I’m not having children, I’m having cats,” Izzy told her.

“We will look after them,” Bella told her grandmother, sensing the gravity of the situation a little better than her sister. “Mostly I will.”

Mrs. Stiles nodded and with some difficulty bent to kiss both girls, holding them close to her until they wriggled to be free. “Good-bye, my beautiful girls,” she said with a finality that made Sophie uncomfortable.

“Good-bye, Grandma, see you next time,” Izzy said, hopping off toward the car.

“Good-bye, Grandma, thank you for the buttons …” Bella paused. “I love you.”

“Sophie,” Mrs. Stiles said as Bella raced off to join her sister. “Keep Carrie’s memory alive for those two, won’t you?”

“Always,” Sophie said. “I’ll see you in a month or so.”

“Perhaps,” Mrs. Stiles said, kissing Sophie briefly on the cheek.

As Sophie climbed into the car, she looked at her phone. It was almost lunchtime and she still hadn’t heard from Louis. She wondered about calling him, but then decided against it. He’d said he’d call if he had anything to tell her. If she called him now, it would look like she was pestering him, that she felt about him the same way Mrs. Stiles did, that she expected him to run away at the first sign of trouble. Sophie did not believe that. So she had no choice, she just had to sit it out and wait for him to get in touch.

•     •     •

It was almost five and getting dark when Sophie finally got the girls back to her mother’s. She still hadn’t heard from Louis. He had been out of contact for nearly twenty-four hours, and most of that overnight. She had no idea what had happened to him, if he’d found Seth or even if he was okay. For the first time since she’d known him, she found herself worrying that he was dead in a ditch somewhere, but at least the worrying masked the hurt, the pain it caused her to realize that he could so easily shut her out of his life. That the hours and days could go by without him needing to talk to her or be near her, especially when she longed to spend every waking moment with him.

Taking her phone out of her bag, Sophie looked at it, willing it to ring. She knew she shouldn’t phone him, but when it came down to it, she couldn’t wait any longer. After all, she loved him and she was having his baby. If that didn’t give her the right to call him whenever she wanted, then she didn’t know what did.