Sunday 18 June – at Bull’s Bridge on the lookout for doodlebugs
All the way down from Birmingham’s Tyseley Wharf the three girls had listened and looked, even down the Aylesbury Arm. ‘I was thinking, not so long ago, that the bombing was over and done with, and then the buggers start sending these damned doodlebugs over,’ Polly shouted.
Verity steered Marigold back towards the main cut and shouted, ‘They’re not bombs, they’re Hitler’s bloody rockets, and the correct term is a V-1, ignoramus.’
Polly, on the other side of the tiller, elbowed her. ‘Stop showing off, for heaven’s sake. Whatever the buggers are, they scare the wotnot out of me. Doesn’t ruddy Hitler know he’s beaten?’
Verity shook her head. ‘Clearly not, darling. Maniacs never do.’
They headed on for Cowley lock, where Steerer Ambrose shouted as he passed, heading north, ‘Yer ’ear t’engine buzzin’, then it cuts out and seems to fall backwards, but fall ’em do, makin’ a right mess. I ’spect it’s bad over east like it were in the Blitz, so keeps yer ’eads down. Someone should shoot that bugger ’Itler.’
Verity felt almost hysterical as she shouted, ‘You’ve got it in one, Steerer Ambrose.’
Tom was heading Hitler’s way, like so many others, all combining to stop the maniac and his bloody stupid army. She knew that, because otherwise he would have telephoned to let her know he hadn’t gone with the invasion force, just as Saul had, leaving a message at Tyseley for Polly to say he was still in England, training.
They reversed into the lay-by at Bull’s Bridge just before lunchtime, watching the sky and listening hard for the buzzing, over the engine’s pat-patter. Sylvia grabbed Marigold’s mooring strap, once she’d tied up the butty. ‘I’ll say it again: try not to worry about Tom,’ she called.
Verity nodded. ‘And I’ll reply, again, darling: that is like trying to stop a bull charging.’ She jumped onto the kerb.
Polly was running over the cabin top carrying the brooms. ‘Come on, let’s clean the holds, then we can find a pub. We need it, we’ve barely stopped.’
‘Lavatory first, thank you very much,’ Verity snapped. Polly was all right; her bloke was safe, not like Tom. She stormed off, stalking past the wash boilers on the kerb.
‘’Ow do,’ Ma Mercy called, as did the others. Mrs Brown approached, her string shopping bag bulging with vegetables, calling out, ‘I miss our Saul’s rabbits, that I do, and the pheasant. Didn’t know rightly how much ’e catched for oos, I didn’t. Makes yer wonder when the lad slept. Not ’eard from yer Tom then? But I got a good feelin’ in me waters, I have, about the lad.’
Verity stopped dead. ‘Have you really?’ she asked, reaching out a hand.
Mrs Brown’s gnarled fingers gripped hers. ‘It says it in the tea leaves. The lad’ll be home. That Saul, too.’
Verity stared at her. ‘Saul’s gone?’
‘So’s I feel, and I’s usually right.’
Verity walked on into the yard. She used the lavatory and then called into the Administration Office. Bob looked up, tired and with bags under his eyes.
‘How’s it been?’ she asked.
Bob grimaced. ‘First the Blitz, now this. You be careful; but yer might be lucky and ’ave a pick-up from Brentford, and you can get back out and away quicker, which is what I ’ope for yer. London’s copping it, no rhyme or reason, they’re just falling all over the place. Barrage balloons are helping to snarl ’em and bring ’em down, and our lads take up their planes to try and whack ’em. Ack-ack is busy too.’
He was groping under the counter.
‘I got a message fer yer mate, young Polly – on the QT, I reckon. A telephone call: Saul said he’s off. Yer tell her, would yer? I’m sick of giving these bloody messages and seeing the faces. ’E said something about a fruit or summat.’ He leaned forward, beckoning her closer. ‘I ’eard from a bloke in the pub that some of ’em ’ave been building a floatin’ harbour for landing supplies. Top secret, it were then, but I reckon now it’s getting in place over there, it ain’t a secret no more. Called summat like a Gooseberry, so it could be a Mulberry instead. Got something to do with War Transport. Makes sense for a boater, don’t it?’
Verity was about to snap about some people being bloody lucky, then stopped. What the hell was she thinking? Perhaps he saw, because he said, ‘Yer lasses are lucky; yer got one another to prop up against.’
She nodded. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without the other two – we’re family, you know.’
He handed over the letters for Marigold and the message from Saul, which he’d written on a scrap of paper. She shoved them in her pocket and hurried off to the Orders Office to hand over their dockets. ‘Any orders, Ted?’
He shook his head. ‘Yer could get off for the afternoon, but take care, them’s aren’t seagulls up there.’
‘Has there been much damage?’
‘Over London, south especially and the east, so don’t yer be ’anging about.’
On her return to the boats she waved the letters. Polly and Sylvia called in unison from the hold, ‘File them.’
Verity stuck them on the bookshelf. One was from her mother, one from Polly’s mother and another was for Sylvia. She took her place in the hold, cleaning out the coal dust and filling the hessian sack with the usual lumps for the coal bucket. She handed Polly Bob’s scribble, saying, ‘The Mulberry could come under War Transport, so maybe Mr Burton used that to swing it.’
‘My mum swung it, don’t you mean?’ Polly’s tone was like acid; corrosive and damaged.
Verity lugged her sack of coal into the store and stared at it; at the tools, and the bucket. Were they both being prima donnas, sitting in judgement on their families and knowing nothing, really? Bet’s words, when they were training, came to her, loud and clear. ‘It’s like running a kindergarten.’
She leaned back against the wall. They were too tired to think straight, and worried almost out of their wits, but the men were fighting and dying while they were being cross, bitter and hugging slights and wounds that were in the past. It really was time they not only shut up, but grew up – she and Polly at least. Sylvia was different, very different, and her problems were nothing to do with growing up.
Polly’s voice reached her from roof. ‘The hold’s all done. I’m nipping off to help Sylvia to finish the butty. What about orders?’
Verity edged out onto the gunwale. ‘None for the rest of the day. And what’s more, Pol, I’m going to stop sinking into self-pity, or fury, or whatever you like to call it. We’ve been stoking one another and it’s time for the truth. I’m off to find my real family, and then I’ll know who and what I am. London’s taking a pounding, yet again, and if I don’t do it now, who knows if they’ll be around to ask later on? Who knows if they’re even alive, anyway? All this hating is making me feel sick. And what about you? How’d you feel if your mum was killed by a doodlebug while you’re flouncing about?’
Polly was stepping onto the butty and didn’t acknowledge the question. Had she even heard? Verity moved across to the butty hold, and all three swept and shovelled, and carried up the hessian sacks into the butty store, after which Polly stormed into Marigold’s cabin, saying, ‘I’m going to have a stand-up wash and come with you. You’re right, you need to sort this out.’
Verity followed her into the cabin. ‘I repeat, idiot, that we need to.’
Polly wiped her face and slammed out of the cabin. Sylvia poked her head round the door. ‘That’s your answer, for now. I think she knows you’re right. Perhaps calling her an idiot didn’t help.’ She disappeared and then called, ‘I’ll be in the butty, having a wash, and then I’m coming with you, too. But we need to get a move on, in case we’re called.’
Verity yelled, ‘We’re laid off until the morning, don’t forget.
She was stripping off when Polly returned and elbowed Verity away from the bowl, muttering, ‘I need a proper wash, so shove over, idiot. And by the way, I’ve dug myself into a hole and I’m not sure how to get out of it. I know Mum is wonderful, and Dad, but although I know it, I’ve hurt them, blamed them, and part of me still thinks they’ve betrayed me. Give me a bit more time, and then I’ll sort it.’
They didn’t reach Poplar until three in the afternoon, and as they rushed along, several doodlebugs roared over, their tails flaring, their engines buzzing. A couple cut out, exploding a little further on. The ground shuddered, the windows shook and previously damaged houses lost more dust, more bricks – even a fireplace hanging off a deserted building crashed into the ruins. It made them think of the one hanging off the wall near the public baths in Birmingham. A chimney smashed into the ground ahead of them.
Their nerves jangled, but all around them everyone just kept on doing what they were doing, including a telegram boy who cycled head down, as though all this was normal. Watching him winding his way around bricks and debris, they tried not to hunch over, but to walk upright, as though they were out for a stroll in the park. They failed.
Polly said, ‘It’s a horrid damp day.’
‘That’s the most idiotic remark anyone could come up with, when it’s raining doodlebugs,’ Sylvia muttered.
Verity held both their arms. ‘We’re British, so we talk about the weather when the world is going crazy.’
Another doodlebug buzzed high overhead in the cloud layer, but kept on going. They tried to ignore the awful screeching and growling of its engine, and the air raid sirens. They passed a damaged terrace on their right. An ARP warden blew his whistle. ‘Get in a shelter, for Gawd’s sake, the lot of you; it’s not ruddy Blackpool pier and a stroll in the sun.’
They did, sitting there for an hour, and then the all-clear went. They continued on their way, smelling cordite. Trees lining the street near a church had gone, felled by the blasts; the leaves were crushed and that smell was stronger for a moment than the dust and explosives. They crunched over broken glass and slates, listening, always listening.
Sylvia stopped, her head up. The other two paused, but no, they were hearing things. ‘It’s June, the sun will come out soon,’ she said, coughing in the dust.
Polly muttered, ‘Bugger that. I want the rockets to stop, that’s what I want. I thought all this was over. I thought now that we had invaded, that was it.’
Verity whispered, because she was so busy trying to listen for buzzing over the sirens that were starting up and the ack-ack guns, ‘Stop going on. They’ll never stop until we are at the gates of Berlin and knocking on Hitler’s door with a noose. And don’t talk to me about forgiveness, Sylvia.’
More RAF fighters were heading out to bring down the rockets. The barrage balloons looked as though they were sagging. In the distance they could hear ack-ack.
‘We could always find a shelter, or you could, while I go on,’ Verity said. ‘You’re only here because of me.’
The ARP warden shouted, ‘Get to a shelter.’
The other two yelled back to the warden, one after another, ‘We haven’t time.’ ‘Things to do.’
They walked on, but no more doodlebugs came over and they straightened up, still walking arm-in-arm, trying to chat and even laugh, as others were doing around them as they emerged from shelters, or had ignored them in the first place. The clouds seemed lower, the breeze cooler, though it carried the smell of burning. The tenements took what light there was, and loomed, dark, and childless, because the evacuation programme had begun, again.
‘Left and then right,’ Verity said, folding up the map. ‘Let’s see if the Rivers family – my family – still live here.’
None of them spoke as they followed her directions and headed for number twelve. The house on the corner of the terrace had been hit, but rosebay willowherb was growing in the ruins, so it was an old Blitz wound. The rest of the terrace was untouched. A pack of dogs were snarling at one another, then disappeared down an alley. A bare-footed child in pants and vest was running along with some older children. ‘They should have been evacuated,’ muttered Sylvia.
A chair stood to the left of the doorway of number twelve. Verity moved to stand just in front of her friends and knocked on the door, barely able to breathe as they waited.
A man of about sixty opened the door. He was wearing a dirty vest and had tattoos on his arms. His trousers were filthy, held up by braces. His two top fly-buttons were undone. A roll-up hung from his bottom lip. ‘Whaddya want?’ he said.
‘Mr Rivers?’
‘Who’s asking?’
‘I’m Jenny’s daughter, Verity Cl—’ She stopped. Who was she? ‘Jenny’s daughter,’ she repeated.
He peered at her, several days’ stubble on his chin. ‘Better come in then.’ His cigarette wobbled. He turned and walked down the hall. They followed. It smelled of … dirt, but not the boaters’ dirt, just years of grease and grime.
He stood in the kitchen, leaning back against the sink in which dirty dishes were piled, dishes that also spilled onto the draining board. On the Formica table several cigarettes had been stubbed out on a dinner plate, smeared with the echo of fried egg, or something. They stood. He crossed his arms. ‘Jenny’s kid, eh? That makes me yer granddaddy. Well, well. Yer goin’ to see us right, are yer?’
‘See you right?’ Verity queried, searching this man’s face for a resemblance to the woman in the photograph. It wasn’t there. He was her grandfather, and he was awful.
‘Too bloody right,’ he grunted, his cigarette moving as he talked, the ash growing longer, just as Gladys’s did, although she was nice. He went on, ‘Jenny said she ’ad a plan, was gonna to marry His Nibs by ’aving a nipper. He was buggered if he were going ter play ball, but she sticks in and does alrighty, then the silly bitch ups and dies. So, as I says, yer going to see us right?’
‘Plan?’ Verity said, moving nearer.
He laughed, belched and the smell of stale beer was overpowering. She stepped back, into Polly, who gripped her waist. He said, ‘’Ow else do the likes of us get on in the world? Full of suchlike plans, she were, silly cow. But as I said, she upped and died before she could swing it. Got something for us, have you – your old granddaddy an’ all – cos we’re family? And yer done all right fer yerself, with them daft buggers.’ He held out his hand.
Polly pushed Verity to one side and stepped forward. ‘What have you got for us?’
He stared. ‘Whaddya mean?’
‘What have you got left of your daughter’s?’
Sylvia took a step forward, too. ‘Then we’ll see what we have got for you. And shame on your soul, for selling your daughter’s memory.’
The man’s mouth dropped open, his cigarette falling onto the worn and torn lino. He ground it in with his boot. ‘Never sure she were mine. The missus put herself about a bit, and she’s long gone.’
A deal was something he seemed to understand, though, and he stared at them as if calculating some sort of sum. Verity recognised the look; it was in any darts team’s eyes as they worked out the best throw.
Finally he nodded. ‘We’ll talk about it when you ’ave a look at what I got.’ He rooted about under the sink and pulled out an old rusted OXO tin. He levered off the lid. Inside was a pencil, a pen and a small notebook. ‘Reckon a tenner’ll do it.’
Verity started to dig in her pockets, but Sylvia took a step closer to the man and gripped the OXO tin. ‘You’ll take a fiver, and that’s it.’ She yanked the OXO tin from his hand, leaving him with the lid. She passed the tin to Polly, with a jerk of her head. Polly nodded, turned and left.
Verity was appalled, and confused. ‘Money,’ insisted Sylvia. Verity dug into her pocket and Sylvia stepped back, then checked her own pockets, as Mr Rivers looked from Sylvia to the lid.
‘Oh dear,’ said Sylvia. ‘We only seem to have three pounds between us. Well, that’ll just have to do.’ She passed over the notes and said quietly – pressing so close, too close, to the man, Verity thought, frightened for her, for them both – ‘You can leave now, Verity. I am right behind you.’
Verity backed to the kitchen door, then waited. ‘I’m not going without you. And I have to ask something important. Mr Rivers, did your daughter, my mother, wear camellia perfume?’
He looked from Sylvia to Verity. ‘Yer what? If she wore anything, it were lavender water, like her ma. Smart girl, Jenny were. Knew what she wanted. Yer look a bit like her, I reckon. Yer could do well, an’ all, if yer got out o’ them clothes and tarted yerself up. Or yer could do well when the men get back, any’ow.’
Sylvia put up her hand and laid it on the man’s chest. ‘You will not move from here, you will not follow us.’
He lifted his arm, his hand fisted.
Sylvia kicked him hard, her boot connecting with his shin. ‘I warned you,’ she said as he yelled, dropping the money. ‘You’d better pick that up,’ she instructed as she backed from him, then walked swiftly in Verity’s wake.
Verity thought she’d been trembling before, but now she was shaking all over, and her legs were jelly as she rushed through the hall to stand in the street, looking at Polly, who was as shocked as she was. Sylvia stepped from the house onto the street, slamming the door, and shouted, ‘What are you doing, standing about? Get a move on, let’s get out of here.’
They ran, crunching over glass, plaster, bricks, faster and faster, with Polly clutching the tin. On the street corner a woman stopped them. ‘You need to keep clear of that Rivers beggar. He’s not like the rest of us. On the take, he is. Well, the world is, but not like ’im. Nasty lot, though there’s only ’im left now.’
They tore on, running over and around the debris, heedless of the sirens and the ack-ack until the ARP warden blew his whistle and yelled, ‘Head for a shelter.’
Sylvia shouted, ‘We are, we’ll get down the Underground.’ At last they reached the Underground station and tore down the steps. It was four in the afternoon, and some inhabitants were already bagging their pitch on the platform, clearly sleeping there overnight, as they had in the Blitz. The girls stood close together, panting, looking at the train lines. Just looking and then turning to check behind. Had he followed?
At last they heard a rumble, felt the movement of air and a crowded train arrived. They pushed their way on. As the train started and they stood, squashed together, the trembling and shaking really took over and Verity braced herself for the darkness, water, blood. But none came. She breathed deeply and stared at Sylvia, pressing hard into her. The man behind was almost asleep on his feet. Verity said, ‘Thank you. How on earth … ?’
‘I was brought up in an orphanage, but did you think, because it was run by nuns, that we sat drinking tea with our little fingers stuck out? We learned to survive, probably just like you two.’
Verity snatched a look at Polly, who looked as ashamed as she felt. ‘No, not like us; we’ve been spoiled, privileged, safe.’
That evening, safely home and sitting in the Marigold having eaten spam fritters, the other two suggested that they leave Verity in peace to read the notebook.
‘I’d rather you stayed,’ she said. She scanned her mother’s childish handwriting and read out the bits that mattered. ‘She talks of my father – a fool, she says, and I’m paraphrasing this. Apparently Jenny taught herself to read and write, so that she could move on up, but decided instead to do that the easy way. Her mother said she was sitting on a fortune, so Jenny should use what she needed to use. She says that my father had so much, and she “had got nothing and he were soft and easy. He liked it when I said nice things. Men are fools, and that woman can’t see what’s under her nose.”’ Verity looked at her friends, shaking her head.
Polly said, ‘Don’t go on. It’ll upset you.’
Sylvia shook her head. ‘She should. It will show her the truth.’
Verity read on silently for a moment, then she read aloud again:
‘Like mum said, when his bloody lordship weren’t going to chuck the missus out: get yourself up the duff and kick up a fuss, saying you’ll make it known he’s the father. He’ll pay yer off or turf Lady Muck out, then you can have a tidy pile either way. Ma wanted to share the money, to get away from the old man. But his bleeding lordship wouldn’t turf her bloody ladyship out, and he wouldn’t pay me off. She, that bloody missus, said NO. She said I wouldn’t take care of the brat. Wouldn’t bring it up nice. She said she was frightened for it. She said they’d pay me to stay here, with the baby. All I had to do was to look after it and everyone would be kind to me, no matter what had gone on. Like some sort of bloody saint, she were. Couldn’t ’ave none of her own, I reckon. She said she could, but wouldn’t, cos the brat must have her full attention.’
Verity looked up, leafed through the notebook and read on. It was like a novel, but it was written by her mother – her mother. She stared at the badly formed letters and thought of the house that Jenny Rivers had known; of the father she had lived with. Why wouldn’t she think this way? And she was right: Lord Henry Clement was a bloody fool. She read on:
‘I had the little house by the stables. All smartened it were. Bloody boring, cos I had no duties, I was a sort of Lady Muck too. I walked the nipper in a pram they bought. I left her outside, cos who wants to hear a brat crying? How were I to know it would rain again. She’d been left before, and the wet didn’t hurt her none. Should have heard the bloody fuss. That Rogers hates me, so do the cook. They said I weren’t looking after her. That Lady Muck showed me how to bath her, but I don’t want to know how; so she does it if I let her, but she nods and says I have the right to say if she can. That’s what she says: you have to say I can, she says, because you are her mother – all posh like, trying to be kind. He don’t even look at me, but he likes the kid.’
Verity had come to blank pages. She looked up. The other two were staring at her, shocked. Verity said, ‘She stopped there.’
Sylvia took the book and flicked through. ‘No, look, there’s this scribble. She’s put a date: 1926. You’re twenty now, so you must have been two. Have you read enough? Shall we put it away?’
Polly said, ‘It’s awful, and sad; and oh, again, just awful. What on earth was she thinking? What were any of them thinking?’
Sylvia handed the book back. ‘The only one thinking with their heart was poor, poor Lady Clement. Her concern was for you, Verity, and to some extent Jenny, and even your father. For the family, I suppose. Perhaps for what people would think, but I don’t think so. I think she cared.’
Verity put up her hand. ‘Let me read this:
So I’m goin, when they’re not here. I’m taking the silver and what I can find, and I’m going. But Mum says I have to get rid of this chest first, cos I’ll need me energy to get set up again, even with what I can take. But I want a man of me own, and I don’t want a kid, not now, so they can ’ave her and good luck with it. I had a plan, but it’s all gone wrong.’
*
They went the next day to tell Ted the orders would have to wait, just for one day, then caught the train to Sherborne. They took a taxi from the station this time and arrived with a rattle of gravel at the front door, at the time Verity had insisted upon in the telegram she had sent. The emergency kitty paid, and it tipped the taxi driver, too. Verity mounted the steps beneath the portico, with the girls some paces behind.
Her confusion was still there, still chaotic, still exhausting. She ran through the hall, over the silk carpet – what did she care about that? She burst into the sitting room, where her father stood at the fireplace and her mother sat on the sofa, as always. ‘Come in,’ Verity called to the girls.
They refused. ‘No, this is between you and your parents.’
Verity barely heard them, but left the door open and sat on the sofa opposite the woman she had thought of as her mother. She didn’t look at either of them, but said, ‘I have been to Jenny Rivers’s home. I have spoken to her father, I have read her diary. It’s like some appalling, sad mess of a story.’ She looked at her mother, and then at her father, to whom she said, ‘How dare you do that to your wife? How could you be such a fool? Jenny was also a fool, with idiotic plans, but you …’ She shook with rage. ‘You were older, her employer, in a position of privilege. Yes, Jenny plotted, but oh, how easily you joined in.’ She handed him the notebook. ‘Stop looking so puzzled – read this.’
He did so, flicking over the pages, his colour rising. He read to the end and slapped the notebook shut.
Staring at it and nothing else, Verity ordered, ‘Now pass it to your wife.’
Lady Clement took the notebook. She began to read, looked up at Verity, her gaze so sad, and then she read on.
Verity said to her father. ‘Were you insane, or just cruel?’
He said nothing, just turned his cigarette case over and over on the mantelpiece. Then he muttered, ‘Yes, I was – insane, I think. No excuse, except the war. It was so dark, so bad, so many dead and injured. I seemed lost. I kept feeling strange, as though I was back there. It was as though Jenny was another place. Away from everything – a sort of pause in the hell. She was kind.’
Verity thought of the freezing cut, and the feelings that had come over her, the darkness. But he had a wife, one to whom he should have turned. ‘And your wife wasn’t kind?’
Her father looked at Verity, and then at his wife. ‘She was – and is – strong, and my equal, and very, very kind. But …’ It was as though he was thinking aloud, struggling for words, even fighting for thoughts. ‘I was a fool, you’re right; insane, and cruel. And I fear I have been so frightened of facing it that I have continued to be so. It is I who held on to the letters your mother wrote to you, fearing that at last she would tell the truth. She has long felt you deserved to know and that, if we told you, perhaps we could stand between you and the pain of the knowledge.’
‘Oh, Henry dear,’ her mother said, with such a measure of compassion that Verity was astonished.
She turned to the woman she had known as her mother. ‘How could you let him do this to you? What about me?’ she wailed. ‘Where was your compassion for me? If you forgave him, stayed with him, loved him, why were you always so angry with me? It wasn’t my fault that Jenny was my mother. You hurt me in the bath, you slapped me. Why couldn’t you see …?’ Verity pressed her lips together. No, she would not cry. She saw the shock on Lady Clement’s face quickly replaced by an even deeper sadness.
There was silence as Verity, at last, saw the truth that had been written in the notebook, but which had not registered. Why had it taken so long? What the hell was the matter with her? She leaned forward. ‘Did you once wear camellia-scented perfume?’
Lady Clement rose, her face impassive, but not her eyes. ‘Follow me, if you would.’ Her voice was like tattered thread. She looked at her husband. ‘You, too, if you would be so kind, Henry.’
She walked out into the hall and up the stairs. Sylvia and Polly stayed sitting on the upright chairs, looking stressed and pale beneath their boaters’ weather-beaten tan. Verity and her father followed Lady Clement into her bedroom, adjoining his. She led them to the dressing table, on which were several perfume bottles. None were of camellia scent. She opened a drawer and pointed. There lay a perfume bottle, on a baby’s cardigan. Verity reached in and took both, holding them close to her face, smelling camellia, just like the shrub that old Matthews had grown.
She gripped them so tightly it hurt. She looked in the mirror. Lady Clement stood behind her, her father next to her, not meeting his daughter’s eyes. Verity said, ‘It wasn’t you who slapped me, was it? You were the kind lady. It was my mother who wasn’t.’
Lady Clement nodded. ‘I loved you then, I love you now. I kept these together because I wore camellia-scented perfume at that time and, once Jenny died, wearing it made me feel sad for her. Somehow, though, I couldn’t just throw it away. It seemed like throwing away her existence. I kept the cardigan because Jenny liked it; she thought you looked sweet in it. Oh, Verity, believe me when I tell you that your mother did care. She even chose your name, but she was young and life had been hard, and she had learned the wrong lessons.’ She shut the drawer.
Verity opened it and replaced the perfume and the cardigan. ‘They should stay here,’ she whispered.
Her father moved to stand by the window, as Lady Clement talked to Verity’s reflection. ‘Your father made a mistake, and we couldn’t find a way out. I chose not to have children, for I never wanted you to feel you were not like them. You were a child in need of protection. Therefore when your mother died, we hid the secret. But it just grew bigger, and so too did my fear that every time you were rebellious you were turning into Jenny and, if so, would I be able to protect you against yourself? Then came Tom Brown, and I feared that he was like Jenny had been, and I couldn’t bear either the hurt for you or a resurrection of the hurt that I endured. I behaved badly. And yes, I was cruel. You must know by now that Tom would not take a penny. But I was out of control, fearful, angry, worried …’
Her father came to stand beside his wife now. ‘Verity, it was all my fault. I acted like a fool, took advantage of Jenny, when I already had true love. I began to see the truth, but it was too late, because Jenny was pregnant. Your mother – my wife, I mean – insisted that we consider the baby, and only the baby. All hurts and slights had to be reduced to nothing, in the face of you.’
He reached out to his wife, who took his hand.
He continued, ‘We both felt that was an absolute priority, and wanted your happiness above all else. I was – am – your father, so I couldn’t let your mother take you back to that family. Was I wrong? Sometimes Jenny would look after you, but more often she would not. Your mother is right: Jenny was as she was because of circumstance.’ He shook his head. ‘We haven’t done a very good job, have we?’
Verity looked from one to the other. ‘I think my mother,’ and she reached out to Lady Clement, ‘has done a remarkable job. And you, Father, are a very lucky man.’
The day wore into evening and the girls left to catch the train before dinner, as they had to take the boats to Limehouse Basin the next day. They knew the cargo would be steel. ‘There’s a war on,’ Verity told her parents – because that’s what they were.
As she left, her mother pressed the camellia perfume into her hand. ‘Perhaps it will remind you of my love.’ Lady Pamela Clement stood on the step, and Verity’s father brought round the car to drive the girls to the station. Verity reached for her mother’s hand, but instead Lady Pamela kissed her cheek. ‘I love you so much, and am so proud of you. You have the best of your mother in you: her spunk, her energy. Who knows what she would have been, had she had a different life. Never forget that.’
Verity hugged her, whispering, ‘I don’t know how you have coped, all these years. You’d make a boater, you know, Mother, but Father needs a good kick up the arse.’
Her mother gasped and then laughed. ‘What man doesn’t? Even your Tom will. We will try and find out his whereabouts – perhaps Sandy’s father can help – and will keep you informed.’