The Heart of the Family (28 page)

Edwin had gone before either Bella or Vi could say anything else, leaving Vi to collapse onto one of the kitchen chairs, and Bella to put on the kettle.

An hour later, Bella had had the full story from Vi of how Edwin had arrived home just after Vi had got back from church, to announce that he wanted Vi to divorce him so that he could marry Pauline.

Vi went into hysterics just relaying to Bella what had happened, and Bella could well imagine just how her mother would have reacted to her father’s shocking and, as far as she could see, totally unexpected ultimatum.

Vi was adamant that nothing would make her agree to a divorce. Edwin was
her
husband and he was going to remain her husband. Not because she loved him, Bella suspected, but because of the social stigma and shame that would attach to her if they were to be divorced.

In the end Bella had had to summon the doctor, who had given Vi a sedative and said that he would call to see her again in the morning. She had also gone round to see Muriel to ask her if she could possibly keep an eye on Vi for her overnight, and to her relief Muriel, who was widowed, had offered to stay and sleep in the spare room.

Bella suspected that Muriel was probably enjoying all the drama but nevertheless she was still grateful to her.

Now that she’d got her mother settled, Bella intended to go to see her father. He would be down at his office, she suspected – either there or at
Pauline’s. She’d try the office first. She guessed that she would not be able to persuade him to change his mind about leaving her mother, but she intended to make sure that both she and Vi kept their homes and that her mother got a decent amount of money out of him. And, of course, she knew just how to do that, Bella decided grimly.

Grace looked at Seb. The November afternoon was fading fast into a wet grey bleakness that shrouded the buildings of the small town, and yet at the same time left the couple with nowhere to be on their own and have the privacy that Grace felt they so desperately needed.

Now, sitting with Seb on a sofa in the front room of his billet, she could almost feel him willing the minutes away until he could take her back to the station. She couldn’t lose him; she loved him so very much and he had loved her as well. She wasn’t going to let someone like Sybil come between them.

She took a deep breath and then said quickly, ‘Seb, about Sybil …’

Immediately he stood up and walked away from her, saying sharply, ‘For goodness’ sake, Grace, don’t let’s start all that again.’ He thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets, keeping his back to her.

Grace felt as though her heart was being squeezed in a vice. The clock in the hall struck the hour, breaking into the tension.

Grace stood up and told Seb quietly, ‘I think we’d better set out for the station.’

Surely now he would say something, or do something to comfort her. Tell her that he loved her and only her; take her in his arms; beg her forgiveness
and understanding. But no, he was doing none of those things.

Feeling sick with despair, Grace put on her coat whilst Seb picked up her small case for her. She knew what she had to do.

They walked to the station in silence, Grace tucking her hand into the pocket of her coat instead of reaching out for Seb’s hand to hold. The station loomed up ahead of them out of the foggy dusk.

Seb caught hold of Grace’s arm. ‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you,’ he began.

Grace’s heart slammed into her ribs. This was it. This was the moment she had been expecting and dreading since she had overheard that conversation in the cloakroom. She shook her arm free of Seb’s hold.

‘Wait until I’m on the train,’ she stopped him quickly. That way he wouldn’t see her tears as it took her away from him and left him free for Sybil and fun.

As luck would have it the train was early and already waiting on the platform. Grace hurried over to it immediately, leaving Seb no choice other than to follow her. As soon as she reached the train Grace mounted the steps to one of the carriages, taking her case from Seb and putting it down inside.

Then with tears in her eyes Grace pulled off her engagement ring and held it out to him, telling him, ‘I don’t know whether or not Sybil meant me to overhear what she was saying to her pals, but I did overhear it and I know that when she talked about engaged girls holding on to fiancés who no longer wanted them and felt that their engagement had been a mistake and that they would rather be
free to have fun, she was talking about me – and you. I’m sorry, Seb, for doing that to you, but you see you’re partly to blame yourself because you did say that you loved me. Doing this is breaking my heart but I won’t keep you engaged to me when you’d rather have your freedom.’

The guard was walking towards them, closing the doors, his red flag at the ready.

Grace could see Seb reaching out towards her. Blinded by her own tears and the smoke from the engine, Grace just had time to press her precious ring into his palm, closing his fingers over it before the guard slammed the heavy door, separating them. She could hear Seb calling out her name but she couldn’t see him. There was a terrible wrenching feeling inside her chest as though someone was literally ripping out her heart. The pain was terrible and unbearable, but somehow she must bear it.

She had done the right thing, the decent thing, the only thing in setting Seb free. She had been strong for him and now she must be strong for herself.

Bella knew exactly what she was going to say to her father, and exactly what she was going to make sure that he did, as well, and she certainly wasn’t going to allow herself to be intimidated by Pauline. She and Bella’s father might consider her to be as good as the next Mrs Firth but right now, in Bella’s eyes and the eyes of the world, she was merely a woman who was trying to steal another woman’s husband. Not that Bella had any illusions about persuading her father to return home to her mother, and if she had had any, she admitted that they would have burst like soap bubbles the minute she walked into her father’s office.

He immediately placed his arm protectively around Pauline, announcing curtly, ‘If you’ve come to tell me that your mother has come to her senses then you can stay. If you haven’t then you can leave.’

‘What about if I’ve come to do you a favour and tell you a very good reason why you should sign over the house to Mummy, and mine to me, and make Mummy a decent monthly allowance for the rest of her life?’

As Bella had known he would, her father looked
as though he was about to explode with rage whilst Pauline tittered contemptuously.

‘Sign over nothing, that’s what I shall be doing. You and your mother should be thanking your lucky stars I’ve bin as generous as letting you have the one house, never mind giving you them both.’

‘Too generous in my opinion, Edwin. Heavens, what young woman with any sense of decency expects her father to buy her a home and provide her with an income? That’s what husbands are for.’

‘Which is, of course, why you’ve needed two of them, Pauline,’ Bella shot back immediately. ‘One obviously was not enough to keep you in the style to which you’d like to become accustomed. Well, I’m sorry but Mummy got there before you and Daddy owes her a very great deal. Everyone knows that.’

‘He certainly does,’ Pauline agreed mockingly. ‘He owes her two children who between them couldn’t make one decent one.’

‘Which is why you’re planning to make sure that you do, is that it?’ Bella asked sharply, having just noticed the small telltale swell not quite disguised by Pauline’s loose top.

It was plain that her words had caught both her father and Pauline off guard.

‘No wonder you’re so keen to get Mummy agree to divorce you, Daddy. Pauline won’t want her little bastard being born as exactly that, will she?’

Her father looked as though he was about to burst a blood vessel, Bella thought unkindly, wondering if it might not be a bad idea if he did and then died, leaving her mother a very rich widow. Such thoughts, though, were hardly daughterly, and despite the fact that right now she did not feel as though she loved
him one single little bit she certainly didn’t want his death on her hands. As that thought formed Bella acknowledged with a small sense of shock how much she seemed to be changing. Once, and not so very long ago either, she would never even have thought to feel guilty. It must be the effect Lena, who had elevated her to the state of something approaching sainthood, was having on her, she decided ruefully, before returning to the attack.

‘I must say, Pauline, that I’m surprised that you’re willing to settle for a house in Wallasey with all the money that Daddy is making by inflating those Admiralty contracts the way he does. I’d have thought you’d be wanting something much more swish out on Wirral.’

Bella almost felt slightly sorry for her father as she saw the way Pauline was looking at him, her mouth compressing and her eyes hard.

‘Of course we won’t be staying in Wallasey,’ she told Bella coldly. ‘Edwin would never expect that of me, would you, Edwin darling?’

‘No, no, of course not …’

‘Then Mummy and I may as well stay in our houses. Or were you thinking of your cousin living in one of them perhaps, Pauline, the one that looks after your son?’

An angry red colour was heating Pauline’s face.

‘For your information – not that it’s any business of yours – me and your father are going to let the house out. There’s plenty of people would pay good money to rent it whilst this war’s one and then once it’s over we can decide what we want to do with it.’

Bella widened her eyes and she said mock sweetly, ‘Oh goodness, how clever of you to think of that.
Pity that you’ve wasted your time, because I know that Daddy, being the kind, generous person he is, is going to sign the house over to Mummy and that he’s going to go with me to his solicitor first thing in the morning to do so. Because if you don’t, Daddy, then I’m afraid I’m going to have to—’

‘If you’re going to threaten to get your father into trouble – again – over his costings, let me tell you, Bella, that you’re wasting your time. Who are you going to tell anyway? Who’d listen to you, a silly hysterical girl who’s behaving badly and out to cause a lot of trouble for her father out of spite? The Head of the Admiralty?’ Pauline mocked Bella with a tinkling little laugh, before turning towards Edwin and smiling up at him.

‘No,’ Bella told her sweetly. ‘Actually it’s Mr Benson from the Government who I’d be telling.’ She paused for a moment to enjoy the speed with which the smile disappeared from Pauline’s lips and her father shrugged his mistress’s hand off his arm.

‘Now see here, Bella’ he blustered. ‘A joke’s a joke and you’ve had your bit of fun.’

‘I’m not joking Daddy,’ Bella stopped him. ‘To be honest I have been feeling very uncomfortable about the fact that my own father is cheating the Government out of money it so desperately needs for the war effort, and I’ve worried a lot about what I should do. As a daughter, of course, I have my loyalty to you but now that we are at war we all have to think beyond our personal duties to those closest to us and think instead of our greater duty to our country and to all those men – our boys – who are risking their lives to protect it and us. Well, that’s what I think, anyway.’

Pauline was giving her a look that was pure vitriol, Bella recognised happily.

‘
You
think about “our boys”? That will be the day,’ Pauline announced viciously. ‘You’ve never given a thought to anyone other than yourself from the day you realised what a thought is. Well, if you think that me and your dad are going to let you blackmail us then you can think again.’

Pauline’s voice had become unpleasantly shrill, but Bella had momentarily stopped listening as she battled against the sudden sharp and unfamiliar stab of pain caused by Pauline’s accusation. So what if she was as Pauline had described her? Why should she care what Pauline or anyone else thought or said?

‘Anyway,’ Pauline continued acidly, ‘you can threaten to tell whoever you like but you can’t prove a thing.’

‘Oh yes I can,’ Bella told her. Turning to her father she pointed out, ‘You’ve always said how important insurance is, Daddy, so naturally when you were so unkind to me about my own house I decided to take your advice and take out some of my own. I copied the details of some of your best-paying contracts from your books – you know, the ones you used to keep at home and not here in the office – and I’ve got the details of your special bank accounts as well – you know, the ones you pay all that lovely extra money you earn into.’

‘None of that means anything. It’s just figures,’ her father blustered.

‘Figures that I am sure will be very interesting to the Ministry, Daddy, and very interesting to Mr Benson as well.’

‘I’m your father,’ Edwin protested. ‘And when I think of what I’ve spent on you and given you—’

‘Mummy is your wife,’ Bella reminded him pointedly. She could see the flicker of unease in her father’s eyes and she was tempted to go to him and plead with him – beg him, if necessary – to forget about Pauline and go home to her mother.

‘Mummy loves you,’ she told him, ‘and she’s dreadfully upset, Daddy. The doctor had to come out and give her something to help her sleep. If you do force Mummy to divorce you, no one will ever have the same respect for you, Daddy, and I dare say you’ll even lose your place on the council.’ Bella knew how much that meant to him. Far more than her mother, she suspected.

For a moment Bella thought she could see him wavering, but then Pauline moved closer to him and said gently, ‘Edwin, darling, I know what an honourable man you are and if you really feel that you would rather be with Vi than with me and our child then I won’t stand in your way. I know I can trust you to do the right thing by us, and if all those things we’ve talked about and planned can’t happen because you feel it’s your duty to be with Vi, then I will understand.’

Pauline’s voice was soft, and her appeal exactly right to have the most effect on her father, Bella knew.

‘I’ve made up my mind, Bella, and nothing you or anyone else can say will change it. Me and Pauline have plans for the kind of future together I could never have shared with your mother.’

‘A future built on Mummy’s unhappiness and financed by cheating the Government,’ Bella pointed out sharply.

‘Now look here, my girl, you aren’t doing either yourself or your mother any favours by taking that kind of attitude, you know.’

‘I’m not the one who has stolen money from the Government,’ Bella pointed out doggedly, ‘and there’s another thing as well, Daddy. I dare say you won’t want there to be much of a delay before Mummy gives you your divorce, not with Pauline in the condition she’s in. You know what Mummy’s like if she’s feeling stubborn. If I were you I’d be doing everything I could to make sure she agrees, and not the opposite, but then maybe I’m missing something and you aren’t really as keen to marry Pauline as she seems to think.’

‘Of course Edwin wants to marry me,’ Pauline told Bella in a hostile voice. ‘You don’t think I’d have permitted him the intimacies I have if that hadn’t been understood right from the start, do you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Bella answered. ‘I wouldn’t have the first idea how a person like you thinks, I’m afraid.’

‘I’ve risked my reputation for your father and my love for him. I dare say there will be plenty who will blame me for Edwin leaving your mother when they should blame her for not being a better wife to him.’

‘My mother has always supported my father, and if he’s told you any different he’s a liar, but then you already know that he is a liar, don’t you?’

Pauline’s face was burning an angry red, but Bella didn’t feel any sympathy for her despite her pregnancy. She was pretty sure that Pauline must have set out right from the start to promote a relationship between herself and Bella’s father, and now that she had succeeded Bella didn’t see why she should sympathise
with her because she was going to have to face social hostility and criticism.

‘Very well then, Bella, I shall have a think about what you’ve said and give you my decision in a couple of days.’

‘Oh no, Daddy,’ Bella told her father firmly. ‘That won’t do at all. I think it would be much better if you came with me tomorrow to see your solicitor to make over the house to Mummy, along with a proper allowance, or I shall go straight to see Mr Benson. Besides, I’m sure that Pauline will be able to see the sense of your treating Mummy generously. A man in your position and a woman in hers can’t afford to lose what little reputation they’ve got left, can they?’

They were both furious with her but there was nothing they could do as both they and she knew, Bella acknowledged.

Her feeling was confirmed when Pauline said angrily, ‘Oh I suppose you’d better do what she says, Edwin, otherwise we’re never going to get rid of them and they’ll be hanging around you for ever, trying to spoil our lives. After all, we’ve got plenty to look forward to, me and you, and she’s right about the Wirral. I reckon we could get ourselves a real bargain out there now whilst this war’s on.’

Watching her father whilst he glowered at her, Bella knew that she had won but there was none of the triumph she might once have felt at that knowledge. Instead she felt more like crying. Not that she intended to let either of them see that, she decided as she ignored her father’s baleful look and left his office.