Sam Alden leaned for a moment against the front gate of number twenty-six, battling for breath and fighting a painful spasm of coughing. The weather was dry and warm for late October; the dust that lifted and blew in the gusty wind stung his eyes and aggravated his sore chest. With the sun low to the south, the early afternoon was golden and mellow. Irresistibly he was reminded of the first time he had seen Molly – small, determined, dirty and, he had thought then, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. He still thought so.
The painful grip on his diseased chest relaxed a little and his breathing eased. He wasn’t well, he knew it; knew that never before at this time of the year had his troublesome chest been so bad. He saw in the mirror each day the shadowed hollows of his face, the pallid transparency of his skin, felt the awful, drained weariness that defeated him more and more often and that, combined with the constant and now quite open warfare that existed between his wife and his mother, wore him down, tired him to death. His long mouth turned down at the apt phrase.
Not long after their marriage Sam had fallen very ill indeed; he had been aware, as he lay fighting for breath and drained of strength, that his life had been ebbing from him as surely as water drains through parched ground. But the sight of Molly’s pinched and lifeless face, the ominous look in his mother’s eyes as Molly’s pregnancy had at last become impossible to conceal, had been the goads to make him fight on. Slowly he had pulled himself back, had even gained a little ground, so that by the early summer he had been feeling better than for some time. He had, as never before, followed to the letter the doctor’s instructions, taken every drop of medicine and tonic prescribed – and several that Ellen had found advertised in the chemist’s besides. He’d rested for long hours upon the day bed that Molly had made up in the sitting room of number twenty-six, the room that by arrangement with Ellen was supposed to be the couple’s own. Regrettably, during those first, lethargic months of their marriage and the trauma of Sam’s almost fatal illness Molly had had neither the strength nor the particular desire to stand up to her dominating mother-in-law, and during that time precedents had been established that now Sam no less than Molly resented, but that no amount of fierce argument on Molly’s part nor reasoning on Sam’s could change, among them the fact that Ellen took it as her inalienable right to walk into the younger Aldens’ room at any time she thought fit, and without knocking. In consequence, in the eight months of their marriage, Sam and Molly had had hardly any privacy at all, and this, compounded with the inevitable antagonism that had grown between the two women as Molly had slowly recovered from the shock of Harry’s death and become more herself again, had made for a turbulent and contentious atmosphere that tightened the nerves and would have made quarrelsome the most peaceful nature. And Sam had to admit that neither of his women had exactly that.
Ellen’s bitter outrage when she had come to realize that not only could the coming child not possibly be Sam’s, but that Sam had known of Molly’s pregnancy from the start, had only been surpassed by her furious and indignant disbelief at the discovery that neither Sam nor Molly had any intention of playing the world’s game of pretence that might have been expected of them. Molly flatly refused to juggle with dates, to speak of premature births, to agree to go away for a few months at the appropriate time so that the actual date of the birth could be respectably blurred; and Sam, to his mother’s scandalized horror, backed her up. The child, he insisted, would be his, whatever the world – or his mother – chose to say of it. It was nobody’s business but their own. And when, at the beginning of September, a crumpled, fierce-tempered, bawling scrap had struggled through Molly’s agony to life, no blood-father could have felt a more amazed and genuine surge of feeling for the screaming little bundle that was placed in his arms than did Sam for Daniel Seamus Alden. Molly, totally exhausted by that last unbelievable effort that had brought her son finally to the light, had lain back on her pillows and watched in astonishment the look on Sam’s face as he had cradled her son.
“He’s b-beautiful,” Sam had said softly, “beautiful as his m-mother—”
In that moment Molly had perhaps come closest to truly loving him.
And Ellen Alden, her mouth set to an embittered and acrimonious line, had stalked from the room with no word, her rigid back a warning of things to come.
That had been almost two months ago. Two months of hell. Molly’s strength had returned rapidly; and, with pregnancy and childbirth behind her and little Danny now to protect and defend, it was with a new Molly that Ellen had found herself contending. Every scrap of the stubborn willpower that had so characterized her before had returned. Whatever ascendancy that Ellen might have enjoyed during Sam’s illness and before Danny’s birth had gone; but not without a bitter fight. And poor Sam, his nights broken by the baby’s crying, his days made nerve-wracking by the dissent of the women, slept less and coughed more, knowing all the while that the cold threat of winter was creeping closer.
Now he leaned tiredly against the gate and listened to the sounds of battle that drifted to him through the open window of the house. He could make out no words, but the harsh and wrathful tones of his mother’s voice and the softer yet somehow more fiercely violent sound of Molly’s told their own story.
Sam sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, unable to summon the energy to interrupt them. “Go and get some rest, boy,” Uncle Thomas had said sympathetically a little earlier, listening to the rasp of his nephew’s breath and seeing the signs of strain in his face. “We’re slack today. I’ll finish up here.” The strangest outcome, in Sam’s opinion, of his rebellious action in marrying Molly had been a great improvement in his relationship with Uncle Thomas. Through Lucy’s somewhat surprising hysterics and Maude’s indignant fury, Thomas had remained, while still firmly beneath his own women’s thumbs, placidly approving of his nephew’s sudden – and only – assertion of independence. “Rest,” he had repeated, in his eyes that shadow of worry that Sam had come to recognize in those who cared for him, “that’s what you need.”
Rest. Not much chance of that by the sound of it.
Sam pushed open the gate and started up the path just as the front door flew open and Molly, clutching baby Danny, erupted from it, her face a blaze of rage. None too gently she thumped Danny into the perambulator that stood by the porch, and the baby, who already showed signs of a considerable will of his own, yelled angrily.
“—and take the brat with you!” came Ellen’s suppressed and vicious voice, held down so that the neighbours should not be given too great a treat. “Good riddance to the pair of you!”
“What’s g-going on?” Sam could not resist the paroxysm of coughing that rose suddenly to his throat.
Molly turned, startled. “Sam? What’re you doing home at this time?” A flash of concern replaced the fury in her face as she heard the racking cough and noted the handkerchief pressed to his lips, the way he hunched his shoulders and turned from her as he coughed. Leaving the screaming child she flew to him, “Are you ill? Oh, Sam—”
He shook his head, wiped his mouth carefully and with practised deception, keeping his head turned until he was certain there were no tell-tale stains to be seen, said, “I’m all right. I’ve been coughing a bit, th-that’s all. Uncle Thomas sent me home. To g-get some rest—” His long, expressive mouth twitched. Molly, with a sudden, affectionate gesture, laid her curly head upon his chest.
“I’m sorry, Sam. Truly I am. But you’ve no idea what she’s like when you’re not here. You just don’t know. I believe that she’d harm the baby if she could—” She sensed shocked dissent in his sudden movement and she caught his arm fiercely, “She would I’m telling you. I’m afraid to leave him for a moment—”
Sam shook his head gently. “You’re exaggerating, Molly dear. You mustn’t l-let things get out of proportion.”
A spasm of irritation crossed Molly’s face and the anger smouldered again, hardening her momentarily softened mouth. By the front door the child screamed enragedly, determined to regain his mother’s attention.
“W-were you going out?”
“Yes.” Molly marched to the pram, tucked the baby in firmly and rocked him to silence.
“Where were you going?”
“I don’t know. Out. That’s all. Just out. Anywhere, to get away from that—” Molly jerked her head towards the house.
“Perhaps you should. A w-walk might do you good, and little Danny too. It’s a lovely afternoon. Here—” leaning surreptitiously on the porch for support Sam put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a half-crown and a couple of shining shillings, “—take this. Perhaps you’ll see something in the shops, some l-little thing that you’d like. A present from me.”
“Oh, Sam?”
“I’d c-come myself if I felt a bit better. Perhaps tomorrow?”
“That would be nice.” Molly stood on tiptoe and kissed his cold, thin cheek, trying not to flinch from the sick and fragile feel of him, trying as she had tried every day in the last months not to compare it with the memory of Harry’s vital warmth.
“At least you’ll get some peace with me out of the way,” she said honestly.
He walked to the gate with her, held it open as she manoeuvred the great, easy-sprung black perambulator – Uncle Thomas’s surprising birth gift – through it, watched her as, without looking back, she marched to the end of the road and turned the corner. Then, after a moment’s hesitation he went into the house to his mother’s anxious and reproachful ministrations.
At first Molly took no note of where she was going. Her blood still boiled in her veins, her mind, whenever she thought of Ellen, was almost blanked out with fury. Danny was asleep, lulled by the rocking movement of the pram; Molly slowed her steps a little. With nowhere particular to go there was little point in travelling at the rate of a cavalry charge. She tried to turn her mind from her latest virulent exchange with her mother-in-law, her temper not in the least improved by the fact that in this instance at least one of her charges – that she, Molly, had been the cause of the deterioration in Sam’s health – might have in it some grain of truth. She remembered him as he had stood there on the path just now. She had been shocked to see him: he had looked ill, worn out. It saddened her to see him so. Poor ailing, kindly Sam, who asked for no more than affection and a little peace and quiet. Through the desolate emptiness of the time since Harry’s death she had taken for granted Sam’s quiet presence, his unswerving and total devotion that seemed more than grateful to accept in return the only thing she had been able to offer: a mild fondness tinged with pity. If Ellen’s charges were in the least true – and she could not in her heart entirely deny them – then she was sorry. She would not deliberately hurt Sam for the world, though she knew too well that in impatience she often did so.
She turned a corner, aware that she was walking a familiar route, but for the moment unheeding. She peered into the pram. Danny was sleeping peacefully, the curls that strayed from beneath his bonnet gilded like flame in the sunshine; she had almost become resigned to the fact that the hair that had started as wispy blond was slowly but unmistakably turning to her father’s bright marigold hue. “My little Irishman,” Sam called him, laughing at the soft downy hair and bright blue eyes; but it was a gentle half-truth and they both knew it. It was not from his mother’s family that Danny had inherited those eyes.
Her footsteps slowed a little as a thought that had been fluttering at the back of her mind suddenly presented itself fully fledged and ready to fly; and she knew where she was going, where she had been heading from the time she had left Sam at the gate. There were others who, if they wished it so, might be said to have some claim upon Danny. Indeed, Molly’s only consolation in her bitter feuding with Ellen came from the fact that the woman she detested was no blood relation to the son that, to her own surprise, she adored. Danny had a grandmother who, so far as Molly knew, did not know of his existence. Molly had had no contact with the Bentons since Harry’s death. Twice Nancy had come to the house during those awful days after the news, and once Jack, on his own. Each time she had not been able to bring herself to see them. Neither had she told them about or invited them to her odd, dreary little wedding, an event that now seemed to have happened to some stranger, in another life. At the time she had not been able to endure the thought of seeing an echo of Harry in other eyes, hearing him in other voices. But since the baby’s birth it had occurred to her more than once that her treatment of Sarah, to whom she knew she owed her life, had been less than kind. Should she not be told that her dead son had left this fragment of life behind him? Should not she and Danny be brought together, now, before such an introduction, through the passing of time, became impossible? After the fraught and unpleasant atmosphere of the house in Linsey Grove the thought of the Bentons, their affection, their laughter, their total lack of malice, was irresistible.
The baby stirred; small hands, like the petals of a flower, opened and closed again. A small, sick flutter of misgiving stirred in Molly’s stomach. It came to her suddenly that she had, unconsciously, held this last refuge in reserve; what if she were not, after all, welcome? In the circumstances nothing could be taken for granted.
There was certainly only one way to find out.
She began to walk a little faster, the pram rocking smoothly before her, its momentum carrying her along, the springs creaking rhythmically in time to her quickened footsteps as she trod the painfully well-remembered route to West Ham.
Her determination took her as far as the top of the Bentons’ street and there it faltered.
Park Road, to a stranger’s eyes, was no different than fifty others in the district, but to one who knew it as Molly did it was unmistakably and achingly familiar. The sight of it brought a tumble of memories that constricted her throat and burned sharply behind her eyes. Her footsteps slowed, dragged. Several doors, including the Bentons’, stood open to the unexpected late afternoon warmth; windows were wide, their lacy curtains barely moving in the soft air. Curious eyes watched, one or two smiles and nods of recognition – and inquisitive interest – brought a stiff response from Molly. Her hands were clamped hard around the handle of the pram, as if her life depended upon their grip. By the time she reached the Bentons’ front gate her courage had left her and she knew with certainty that she was making a dreadful mistake. The thought of the words that could, in absence of charity, be used against her jangled already in her ears. But she had been seen, and recognized; it was unthinkable now to do anything but follow through her impulse.
She pushed the big pram through the gate and up the short path that led to the open door; she could see no one, but from the back of the house came the sound of voices, Nancy’s and Sarah’s.
Carefully she lifted Danny from the pram, brushed and straightened his dress and bonnet The baby stirred, squeaked, went back to sleep again. Molly stood within the familiar, shadowed doorway and strained her ears. Still just those two voices, Nancy’s and Sarah’s. Her fast-beating heart calmed a little; the women she could face. It came to her, surprisingly, that Jack’s voice had been the one she had suddenly dreaded to hear. She stepped quietly across the room where she had first opened her eyes after her illness and seen Harry teasing Nancy by the fire, and opened the door into the back room. From the adjoining scullery came a sudden clatter of crockery and Nancy’s voice, raised as Molly had never heard it before, edged raggedly with tears.
“Don’t keep on about it, Mam. Please. I’ve made my mind up. I’ve got to tell him. Got to.”
“I know that, lass. All I’m saying—” Sarah stopped in mid-sentence, her widening eyes fixed upon the small and uncertain figure who had appeared in the doorway.
Nancy turned.
“I’m sorry,” said Molly into the silence, “I didn’t mean to startle you. The front door was open—” The baby, clutched in her arms, mewed in discomfort; she had to make the physical effort to relax, to hold him less tightly.
Sarah’s eyes had gone straight to the child, but Nancy was looking at Molly, her thin face alight with astonishment and dawning delight. “Molly!” she said, and the welcome and warmth in that single word was the final release for Molly’s threatened tears. Unable to wipe them away she stood speechless and sniffing as with one accord the two women rushed to her, embracing, exclaiming, words tumbling disjointedly like marbles from a child’s pocket. Danny, infuriated by this unaccustomed disturbance, let rip an earsplitting shriek, and Molly found herself handing him into Sarah’s competent arms as naturally as if she did it every day. With her arms free she was able to return Nancy’s hugs and surreptitiously mop away the tears that were such a confusing compound of happiness and pain. Sarah was crooning softly to Danny, her quiet voice lifting and falling around the girls’ excited exclamations, her eyes intent upon the tiny face.
Nancy paused in her torrent of questions, none of which Molly had had opportunity to answer properly anyway, and looked at her mother and the child.
“Is it a girl or a boy?”
“A boy. Danny.”
“He’s beautiful. Beautiful! Look at the colour of his hair—”
“From my father.”
Sarah lifted her head and asked, almost steadily, “And his own father?”
Molly hesitated for only a fraction of a second. If the truth were to be told, it had to be now. “He has Harry’s eyes, I think,” she said simply. She heard the quick intake of Nancy’s breath, saw Sarah’s cradling arms gather the baby closer to her, and knew with relief that her instinct had been right.
After a moment’s quiet Nancy bustled to the table and picked up the teapot. “Sit down, Moll, for heaven’s sake. I’ll make a cup of tea.”
Molly sat carefully, her eyes still on Danny, unable yet quite to meet Sarah’s. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” she said awkwardly, “sorry I didn’t come. It was just – I couldn’t. I couldn’t.” She ducked her head.
“Don’t fret, lass. You’ve come now. That’s all that matters. Here—” with a small, regretful smile Sarah relinquished the little warm bundle. “It’s his Mam he wants. Make yourself comfortable while our Nancy makes the tea. Then we can talk. We’ve a lot to catch up on—”
Nancy appeared in the doorway with the empty teapot in her hand. “You’ve come back in time for the wedding,” she said happily. “You’ll come, won’t you?”
“Oh, Nancy, how lovely. Of course I’ll come. When is it? Where are you going to—?” She knew as she spoke that she had misunderstood. She stopped abruptly.
Nancy shook her head, set the pot on the table as if it were glass; colour had risen furiously into her face.
“Not me,” she said steadily, “Charley and Annie. They’re getting wed next month.”
Molly looked from one to the other. “Is something wrong?”
Sarah opened her mouth. Nancy said sharply, “Nothing that won’t wait till later.” She leaned forward and indicated the wedding ring on Molly’s hand. “We haven’t heard all of your news yet—”
The sound of Jack’s arrival, half an hour or so later, was completely covered by the sound of the women’s voices. He stood for a moment in the doorway unobserved, watching them. Molly saw him first; Nancy followed the direction of her startled and rather apprehensive gaze and thumped to her feet.
“Jack, oh Jack, look who’s come. It’s our Molly. And—” she hesitated “—and Danny.”
He seemed even bigger than Molly had remembered him, but his square, strong-boned face was the same, and his sun-streaked hair. Oddly, he did not smile, and though he spoke to Nancy his calm blue eyes held Molly’s.
“She’s right welcome,” he said quietly, “she knows it. And the little lad too.” Of all the younger Bentons Jack had retained most of his northern origins in his speech; his “right” still came out almost as “reet”. Harry, born mimic, had almost totally assimilated the speech of his adopted home. Only in fun had he dropped back to the broad accent of his childhood. The sound of it now stopped Molly’s heart for half a beat. She stood up. If he would only smile.
“Thank you,” she said.
His serious gaze shifted from her face to the bright head of the child and back again, his expression giving no clue to his thoughts. Molly stepped forward nervously, holding the baby tentatively towards him, unable completely to subdue the slight trembling of her arms. Jack was the undisputed head of the family; she needed, without absolutely understanding why, his approbation, his acceptance of herself and of her son. Always in the past she had been uncomfortably aware of a slight reserve between Harry’s eldest brother and herself, something akin to coolness that she could only interpret as disapproval, perhaps even dislike. A year ago her reaction had varied from mild defiance to an elaborate carelessness; now she knew that she needed his friendship. For a long second she stood with the child in her shaking, extended arms, unaware that her eyes spoke the plea that her tongue would not. Jack made no move to take the baby, and with sinking heart she was certain she had lost. Then he lifted an enormous hand, touched the bright soft head gently with a calloused and not very clean finger.
“Nay, lass,” he said, his voice thick, “I’ll not take him. Likely I’d drop him.” He smiled for the first time, the slow, lovely smile he took directly from Sarah. “I doubt he’d take kindly to that. Or you, either.”
Molly could not yet return his smile; there was another hurdle to be crossed first. “He’s Harry’s son,” she said, flatly, unemphatically, hearing the note of defiance in her own voice, unable to prevent it, willing her eyes to remain steady on his.
Jack nodded. “I guessed so.”
The front door banged.
“Charley!” said Nancy, happily.
“Good God Almighty! Little Moll!” Charley’s delighted grin over Jack’s wide shoulders had them all laughing; the odd tension of the preceding moments was broken. “Come on out here, girl, where I can get at you. Bloody scullery’s not big enough for me and Jack together.” He caught her, baby and all, in a bear hug. “Wait till I tell Annie. Just wait! She’ll throw a fit!”
In the hour that followed Molly was happier than she had been in months; but time flew and the baby whimpered, then yelled in good earnest.
“My bedroom,” said Sarah, expertly divining the reason for his indignation. “You can feed him there in comfort.”
Edward, who had come in some minutes before and who was eyeing Danny with a mixture of fascination and distrust asked, “Why’s it go to eat in the bedroom?” and Molly, as she climbed the stairs, heard his small, plaintive voice behind her, “but why does the baby have its tea in the bedroom? Can I have my tea in the bedroom? When, Mam? When can I—?”
When she returned to the kitchen some little while later she glanced a little guiltily at the clock, then said, “I really must go. Sam will be worried.”
Jack stirred in his chair.
“I’ll walk with you,” said Nancy quickly, “I can bus back. It isn’t late.”
“Why don’t we all go?” Charley asked cheerfully, but he was quelled by a meaning look from his mother.
“You’ll come again soon?” Sarah asked as she kissed Molly’s cheek.
Molly nodded. “I promise. You’ll get tired of seeing me, that you will.”
Charley was looking down at the tiny, milky scrap in the pram, an expression of wonder on his face. “Hell fire,” he said quietly, talking almost to himself, “Annie and me could have one like that by this time next year.”
“Then I’d advise you both to get as much sleep as possible before it happens,” Molly said drily, “for you’ll certainly get none afterwards.”
“Annie wants six,” Charley said, thoughtfully.
“One at a time, I hope!” Molly said, and then she and Nancy left the others still laughing; but the smile soon died from Nancy’s face leaving it, as before, strained and unhappy-looking.
The big pram bounced in front of them; Danny, replete, was asleep. Molly stayed quiet, waiting for her friend to speak, but for some time she did not and they walked through the cooling streets in silence. Yet as they walked both were aware of the renewal of their old companionship, of the bond between them that past events might have strained but had certainly not broken. The light was failing rapidly now, though the sky to the west above darkly silhouetted rooftops and chimneys was washed with the faint rose-gold of the aftermath of sunset. As they passed a piece of desolate-looking waste ground across which, despite the deepening dusk, children still ran and called, their voices echoing along the canyons of the surrounding streets, Nancy said abruptly, “There was a bonfire here on Mafeking Night. And fireworks.”
“Did you come?”
“Yes. With Charley and Annie. And – Joe.” Molly did not miss the infinitesimal hesitation before she spoke the name. “We didn’t really want to go at first, but the others talked us into it – you know what Annie is – and they were right. I was glad afterwards, that we went. It would have been a shame to miss it. I’ve never seen anything like it – people were singing and dancing in the streets, there were bonfires on every corner. It’s a wonder London didn’t burn down. The greatest celebration ever held, so they say.”
A few more steps in silence. Molly considered her next words carefully and decided that she could be nothing but blunt.
“How is Joey? Do you still see him?”
In the short pause before the other girl answered, their footsteps rang loud on the grimy pavements. “Yes, I still see him. He’s fine. He’ll be going with his brother soon, out to Africa. As a missionary. And schoolteacher.”
The air was turning chilly; Molly fussed Danny a little, pulling the blanket up, tucking his tiny hand beneath it, lifting the hood slightly to protect him from the night air. House doors were shut now, and windows bloomed yellow light. As they passed one Molly glanced at her companion’s face. Nancy was staring ahead of her with the lost look of an unhappy child.
“Nancy, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“Joe’s asked me to marry him. He wants me to go with him to Africa.” It was said quite flatly.
Molly stared. “What? But I thought—”
“I said no.” Nancy continued, as if Molly had not spoken. “But he doesn’t understand. He thinks – he’s certain that I’ll change my mind. And I won’t. I can’t. But he won’t listen, won’t believe it. Oh, God, I didn’t want this. I didn’t! I just wanted us to be friends—” The edge that Molly had heard in her voice when she had been talking to Sarah was back, wrung with unhappiness, a breath from tears. They turned the corner into the long road that led to Linsey Grove, and their pace slowed.
“I can’t say I understand any better than Joey does,” Molly said at last, with honesty, “I would have said that you loved him, that you wanted to marry him—”
“I do!” It was a cry from the heart.
“Then for heaven’s sake—?”
“I can’t! That’s all there is to it. I can’t. Oh, it’s my own fault, I know. I should never have let things go this far. I tried not to. But I couldn’t help it. I love him. I didn’t mean to, but I do. I couldn’t stop myself.”
Molly was close to exasperation. “Why on earth should you try? Nancy, you aren’t making any sense. Unless it’s that you don’t want to leave home, go to Africa – I can understand that—” But Nancy was shaking her head vehemently. “Well, what, then? Do you mean that you think that Joey doesn’t love you?”
Nancy took a deep, wretched breath. “He loves me. He says he does, and I believe him. Oh, not – wildly, I know that. It isn’t in his nature. But he does love me.”
“Well, then—”
It took a visible effort for Nancy to calm herself, but when she spoke her voice was composed again. “I told you. Joey wants to be – is – a missionary, a teacher. He is dedicated to that. He is so sure, so certain. He sees things in black and white, there are no shades in between. There is good and there is bad. He holds every soul responsible for his own actions, and weakness, to Joe, is the same as wickedness; there are no excuses for either.” She shrugged, helplessly. “I can’t marry him. It would be dishonest. I can’t.”
They had turned the corner of Linsey Grove. Molly stopped walking so suddenly that Danny woke and stirred protestingly.
“Holy Mary!” Molly’s voice held the vehemence of disbelief. “What are you talking about? You’re surely not trying to tell me that you won’t marry Joey Taylor because you don’t think you’re good enough for him? Saints above, Nancy, don’t be ridiculous.” Her voice had risen, disturbing the baby. “Be still,” she said to him, “no one’s talking to you.”
Nancy was shaking her head; in the gleam of lamplight Molly could see the shine of tears.
“You’re crazy,” Molly continued. “The man’s known you long enough. Don’t you think he’s able to judge? He says he loves you. You love him. Isn’t that enough?” Awful echoes of herself and Harry; the thought roughened her voice. “If you ask me about who’s good enough for who, I’d say the boot’s on the other foot entirely. If Joey Taylor gets you he’ll be a lucky man, and I’ll be the first to tell him so.”
There was an odd little silence. “Oh, Molly,” said Nancy, her voice shaking.
Molly looked at her, her heart sinking at the tone of those two simple words. “Tell me,” she said very quietly, “Tell me what you haven’t told Joe. Perhaps it will help.”
“Nothing will help. Nothing. But I’ll tell you anyway. You should know.” Nancy was leaning into the deep shadows of a dusty privet hedge. A little way down the road the light from the front door of number twenty-six streamed down the path and touched the gate, a bright, waiting finger. A horse and cart clopped sedately across the end of the road and was gone; a dog barked.
“Edward,” said Nancy in a clear, tired voice, “isn’t my brother. He’s my son.”
There was no disguising the shock. Molly stared blankly at the pale blur that was Nancy’s face. “Your son? But – he can’t be—”
“He is.” The figure beside her was rigid, the voice expressionless. “He’s the reason we left the north, came to London. Can you imagine the tongues? Not even Mam could face them, strong as she is. Right friendly were our neighbours—” bitterly she broadened her accent, “—who’d ’a thowt it, eh? A gradely lass like ower Nance. Ee, I feel reet sorry fer them Bentons—”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
Molly chewed her lip. The splash of light on the pavement outside number twenty-six broadened and brightened as the door was opened. A shadow danced, and footsteps sounded on the tiled path to the accompaniment of a quickly suppressed cough.
Faintly came Ellen’s voice, sharp and impatient. “What on earth do you think you’re doing now? Sam? Sammy! Come back in here at once. You’ll catch your death.”
“Just a breath of air, th-that’s all.” Sam’s voice was weary. The two girls saw his thin, stooped figure appear, leaning on the gate.
“If you’re looking for your precious Molly,” said his mother’s voice with relentless hostility, “then you’re wasting your time, I’ll tell you that for nothing. She’ll be back when she feels like it and not before. She’ll not give you a thought until she wants something.”
Molly sighed. “God Almighty,” she said in a conversational tone, “I swear I’m going to kill that woman one of these days. With my bare hands.”
The tension seemed to have drained from Nancy with her confession; surprisingly she managed a smile. “You’d better go.”
“I don’t want to go. I want to talk to you. You’re making a mistake, Nancy, surely you are? If Joey loves you he wouldn’t let something that happened so long ago and while you were still almost a child come between you, would he?”
Sam had seen them. The latch rattled and the heavy gate swung open; Ellen’s voice followed him, harsh as the call of a crow. He peered along the dark street.
“Molly? Is that you?”
“Yes. I’m coming.”
“Is there someone with you?”
“Nancy Benton.”
They waited as he came towards them; Molly fought down a sudden raging impatience, a desire to walk away, to deny his right to interrupt.
“Miss Benton.” He held out a cool, thin hand. “How n-nice to see you again. Will you c-come inside?”
“No, thank you. I really have to go. It’s getting late.”
“Thank you for walking Molly home.” Sam’s voice was slow and careful; Molly’s irrational exasperation died; he was trying to control his stammer. She almost reached for his hand. She had hoped, for his sake, to bring up the subject of her renewed friendship with the Bentons in private, and gently; a sudden confrontation had been no part of the plan. By the gate she saw another shadow; Ellen had come out of the house and was craning her neck to see whom Sam was talking to, shading her eyes against the light of the street lamp with her hand.
Nancy was turning from them. Molly caught her arm, but Nancy shook her head. “I’m all right, Moll. You can’t help. No one can. I have to make up my own mind.”
“But you’re wrong about Joe,” Molly said, doubting her own words even as she spoke them. “Surely you must be.”
“Perhaps. Anyway,” she said; her voice was falsely bright, “right or wrong I’ve a bus to catch.”
“I’ll walk you to the stop,” Sam said.
“Oh, no—”
“Please. I’d l-like to. It’s only round the corner.” He turned to Molly. “Shouldn’t you get the baby inside? It’s a b-bit cold.”
Molly nodded.
“Sam? Who’s that with you?” Ellen’s peremptory voice.
Sam did not reply. “I was worried about you,” he said to Molly gently.
“I’m sorry.” She did not sound it and she knew it. She made an effort to soften her tone. “I went to see the Bentons. I hadn’t planned to, I just went on the spur of the moment. We got talking, and I didn’t realize—”
“Sam!”
“I won’t be a m-minute, Mother. I’m going to w-walk Miss Benton to the omnibus.”
“You don’t have to, Mr Alden, truly you don’t.”
“But I want to. The w-walk will do me good. And it’s the least I can do after you’ve come all this w-way to see Molly home.” He waited while Nancy bent and kissed the silent Molly’s cheek. “I’ll see you later, dear.”
Molly nodded and watched them down the street, aware even at this distance and without looking at her of Ellen fuming at the gate a short distance down the street. Firmly she kept her back turned. Let her fume. She could hear Nancy’s light voice as she replied politely to some comment or question of Sam’s, then the two turned the corner and were gone.
Ellen, her lips clamped as tight as a sprung mantrap turned from the gate, marched up the path and through the front door, slamming it shut behind her, leaving Molly to follow as best as she could.
Molly stood for a moment alone in the darkness, in her mind a picture of Joey Taylor with his cool, uncharitable eyes, his humourless self-discipline, his uncompromising views on human frailty.
Poor Nancy.