Even though they had not parted as the close friends they had once been, Hettie still missed Babs. The small room they had shared felt empty without her, and Hettie – to her own chagrin – had even found that at bedtime she was chattering out loud about the events of her day, just as though Babs were still there.
Her skin had almost returned to its normal colour, and although nothing had been said between them about how angry he had been with her, Jay had been hinting to her about wanting to buy her ‘something pretty’, and he was also pressing her to agree to move into the house down by the river in Chelsea, which he had described as ‘small and simple’ but which to Hettie had seemed far too luxurious. So much so in fact that the second time Jay had insisted on taking her to view it she had actually felt uncomfortable being there.
‘What is it about it you don’t like?’ Jay had pressed her when she had shaken her head and cut their inspection short.
‘I don’t know,’ she had told him honestly. ‘It just feels so…’ She had shrugged, giving up her struggle to find the words to express to him how uncomfortable the house, with its heavily flounced curtains and furnishings, its too thick rugs and its too delicate furniture, had made her feel. In the same way Hettie felt unable to explain to Jay that the rooms, with their heavy, still over-perfumed air, made her feel as though she were trapped in some kind of cage.
In Preston, in Winckley Square, the house, the home in which she had grown up, had had rooms that smelled of male tobacco and leather, rooms delicately scented with Ellie’s favourite rose water, a kitchen rich with the delicious smell of cooking food, and a nursery that smelled of baby powder. All those different scents had made the Winckley Square house a home, whereas the Chelsea house felt more like a prison.
She had told Jay that she wanted to stay where she was.
‘Ah, you are still angry with me, aren’t you?’ he had commented.
Was she? Hettie didn’t really know sometimes how she felt about him now. Part of her felt dizzyingly excited and grown up, knowing that he desired her. Part of her felt thrilled and shocked because of the eager curiosity he made her feel to break the rules she had been brought up with and give herself to him. But part of her, too, shrank from that, especially now after what had happened to Mary. And yet another part of her, perhaps the most important one of all, couldn’t stop thinking of John and the stolen kiss.
‘No, I’m not angry,’ she had told him. ‘But…’
‘But what?’ he had challenged her.
‘But maybe we should wait until we go to New York to live together,’ she had answered him.
‘Do you realise how cruel that would be?’ he had asked her softly. ‘I don’t know if I can wait that long for you, my little Hettie. My body is so hungry for your sweetness,’ he had told her, and then shockingly he had taken hold of her hand and placed it firmly against his body.
The great throb of that most male part of him beneath her nervous fingers had sent a burn of colour up over her skin that had remained even after Jay had allowed her to snatch her hand away.
So much was changing so very fast, Hettie acknowledged uneasily as she crossed Trafalgar Square, making her way past a brewery dray pulled up outside a public house. The landlady, plump arms akimbo, was standing over a thin skivvy, watching her scrub the stone step. Hettie gave a small sigh, thinking of Liverpool where its houseproud women not only scrubbed their front steps but donkey-stoned their edges as well to make them look white.
Shaftesbury Avenue and Drury Lane were always busy at this time of the morning – not with theatre-goers, of course, but with delivery boys on their bicycles, theatre workers yawning their way to early rehearsals, landlords and restaurateurs setting their premises to rights for the day and evening’s trade, and, of course, the area’s nightshift workers making their way home. Hettie quickly averted her gaze from the sight of a still drunken prostitute lurching along the pavement. The girl, although only around Hettie’s own age, had open running sores around her mouth and bruises on her too thin arms. She also had a small baby in her arms, and on a sudden impulse Hettie stopped and opened her purse, turning back to give the girl a few pennies.
The blank eyes widened and the girl stared at Hettie in disbelief.
‘For the baby. Buy it some milk,’ Hettie told her quickly before hurrying away.
She had no idea what had prompted her action. Many of the area’s prostitutes were loud mouthed and sometimes violent, and often hurled not just insults but sometimes even missiles at the girls when they left the theatre at night.
With two of the understudies now taking the place of Sukey and Babs, two new girls had joined the troop, Londoners with sharp cockney accents who made it clear that they thought themselves a cut above the show’s northerners.
Already there was a different and sometimes hostile atmosphere in the dressing room, with barbed comments being made, and antagonism crackling on the cheap-scent laden air.
Everyone was beginning to say they wanted the run to end, and since audiences were now beginning to dwindle Jay had told Hettie that he did not intend to keep the show going until the end of September, which was when the lease ran out.
If Babs had only waited another few weeks she might have been returning to Liverpool and her Stan anyway, Hettie reflected as she crossed the road and headed for the theatre and the busy dressing room where she still looked instinctively for Babs before remembering she was now hundreds of miles away.
Mary was standing several feet away from her, her whole body bristling with defensive anger as one of the other chorus girls taunted her, ‘So, His Lordship is going to mek someone else Her Ladyship then, eh Mary, and not you!’
‘Shut your mouth, Dinah. And keep that long ugly nose of yours out of my business, otherwise I’ll be pushing it out of it for you,’ Mary warned her viciously.
Dinah tossed her head and refused to be cowed, saying sneeringly, ‘So much for that bloody ring you’ve been flashing in front of us. I’ll bet it ain’t even real.’
‘Yes it is,’ Mary told her, red-faced.
‘Huh. That’s what you say. Here, girls, come and look at this,’ Dinah called out, rummaging in her bag and producing a newspaper. ‘It’s all in ’ere. An announcement of the engagement and a picture as well.’
Ignoring Mary, several of the girls pushed forward to look at the page Dinah was brandishing with such glee, whilst Hettie’s heart ached for Mary. She went over to her and stood protectively at her side.
‘’E did love me, ’Ettie,’ Mary told her quietly. ‘’E swore he did and he swore he were going ter marry me an’ all, else I would never…It’s that bloody mother of his wot made ’im change ’is mind. If’n I could just talk to ’im, ’Ettie. But he’s refusing to see me.’ Tears filled her eyes.
The hot weather seemed to have put everyone’s tempers on edge, Hettie decided later when the director had called a halt to the rehearsal.
‘This isn’t the correct piece of scenery,’ he complained angrily. ‘I gave orders that it was to be changed. Where is the new piece?’
The stage manager was sent for, and whilst they were waiting for him Hettie could not help noticing how immediately and intimately Ivan had gone to talk to the young male dancer who was his constant companion. He even continued to stand with him when the stage manager arrived, ignoring the other man for several minutes before finally turning towards him.
‘I gave instructions that this piece of scenery was to be repainted,’ Ivan announced.
The stage manager mopped his face with a large spotted red handkerchief. ‘Yes, Ivan, I know,’ he agreed. ‘And I passed on your instructions.’
‘So why have they not been carried out?’
The stage manager mopped his forehead again. ‘Unfortunately, our set designer isn’t very well at the moment.’
Hettie tensed as she listened, anxiety gripping her stomach. Eddie had been at the theatre earlier in the week because she had seen him, although not to talk to.
‘Not well? You mean he is sick?’
Someone behind Hettie sniggered and muttered, ‘Aye, sick from drink. He spends more time in the Flag and Drum than he does in here.’
To Hettie’s relief the director was too far away to have overheard.
The young dancer tugged on the director’s sleeve. Ivan bent his head towards him and the boy whispered something in his ear.
‘It seems that the set designer is not so sick that he cannot leave his sick bed to carouse in every filthy drinking den between the theatre and Piccadilly Circus,’ the director spat out acidly.
Eddie was well liked by those who worked with him, unlike the director, and Hettie saw how anxious and uncomfortable the stage manager looked. ‘I’ll send someone round to his lodgings and tell him to get here,’ he offered.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ the director told him coldly. ‘But you can tell him that I intend to talk to Mr Dalhousie about his inability to do as he is told.’
The director was going to tell Jay about Eddie? Hettie exhaled slowly. Well, she too could talk to Jay about Eddie and she would make sure that Jay knew how Ivan had tormented and persecuted his former lover, flaunting his new partner in front of him and treating him so cruelly that Hettie was not surprised poor Eddie was drinking more and more.
In addition to her normal singing lesson Hettie was now also practising singing the new songs Archie had sent from America, with both Hettie and Madame sworn to secrecy because Jay did not want anyone to know what he was planning to do.
With so much to learn it was no wonder that she was feeling tired, Hettie acknowledged as she left Madame’s rooms and stepped out into the sunshine.
She was meeting Jay for lunch, having persuaded him that instead of eating in a restaurant they should picnic in Hyde Park.
‘Picnic? Why on earth would we want to do that?’ he had complained.
‘Because it’s fun,’ Hettie had told him determinedly, even though a part of her had recognised that Jay in his elegant town clothes would not be comfortable sprawling on Hyde Park’s dusty grass in the same way that John would have been. So she was not entirely surprised when Jay ushered her past the entrance to the park and towards an elegant café instead.
‘I’m sorry I was a bit late meeting up with you,’ he told her as he summoned a waiter. ‘Ivan wanted to see me.’
Hettie put down her menu. ‘Not about Eddie?’ she asked him anxiously.
Immediately Jay started to frown. ‘It was connected with him, yes,’ he agreed curtly. ‘But such matters need not concern you, Hettie.’
‘But they do concern me,’ Hettie told him fiercely.
Jay put down his menu and waved away the hovering waiter. ‘I’m not sure that I understand you. How can the fact that my set designer is too drunk to perform his duties in a proper manner concern you?’
There was a warning note in Jay’s voice but Hettie chose to ignore it. ‘It concerns me because Eddie is my friend,’ she told him. ‘And…And I happen to know that Ivan has been very unkind to him. Oh, Jay,’ Hettie implored emotionally. ‘I am sure that it is because of the way Ivan has been treating him that poor Eddie has been drinking so much.’
‘I don’t think…’
‘Jay, please please listen to me. Poor Eddie, can you not understand that he loves Ivan so much and Ivan has been horribly cruel to him? Eddie told me that they were together in Paris, and that Ivan swore to him that he loved him and…Jay!’ Hettie protested in bewilderment as Jay pushed back his chair and stood up, his face dark with revulsion as he threw down his napkin.
‘How can you speak of such filth?’ he asked her angrily. ‘It is an abhorrence…a loathsome disgusting perversion, and those who steep themselves in its filth should not be allowed to contaminate others with their presence.’
‘But Eddie loves Ivan.’
‘What is this you are saying?’ Jay demanded savagely.
‘Eddie loves Ivan, and now Ivan has taken one of the dancers to his bed and poor Eddie is inconsolable,’ Hettie repeated stubbornly.
‘He has dared to tell you that? For that alone in Orleans he would be horsewhipped. You will never, ever mention such a subject again. You do realise that these unnatural practices are forbidden by law, I trust?’
Hettie was bewildered by Jay’s reaction. He was making her feel as though she had done something wrong, but everyone in the theatre knew that the law he spoke of was constantly being broken.
‘You are speaking as though you didn’t know about, about men like Ivan and Eddie, but you must have done,’ Hettie defended herself spiritedly. ‘Everyone who works in the theatre knows of such men.’
‘Everyone may know of them, Hettie, but that does not mean that their vile way of life should be condoned. I certainly do not condone it. If I had my way they would have their wretched perversion beaten out of them,’ Jay told her in disgust.
Hettie didn’t know what to say. She had never imagined that Jay would be so cruelly unkind. John, she knew instinctively, would have shown far more compassion. Shockingly her eyes suddenly misted with tears.
‘Now let us have an end to this matter,’ she heard Jay saying forcefully as he re-summoned the waiter.
Hettie shook her head, refusing to take a menu. ‘I’m not hungry,’ she told him stiffly.
‘John, I want you to do me a favour.’
John frowned as he looked at Polly. She had burst into his office minutes earlier, insisting that she must see him.
‘What kind of favour?’ he asked her.
‘I want you to give this to Sir Percival Montford for me,’ she told him curtly, pulling off her gloves and then opening her handbag to produce a brown paper parcel tied with string.
‘I’d give it to him myself only I’ve got to drive over to Oxford to pick up my darling Ralphie. His mother wants to see me and he wants to come with me to protect me because she is such a dragon. Too sweet of him.’ She laughed but John could tell that her laughter was strained.
He looked at the parcel she had placed on his desk and then at her. ‘Polly,’ he began uneasily. ‘I know it is none of my business but this…friendship that has developed between you and Sir Percival…’
‘Friendship?’ What…what do you mean?’ she demanded.
John looked down at his desk and then at her.
Had she not approached him like this he would probably not have said anything about what he had seen, but since she had…
‘I saw you and Sir Percival Montford together at the public house outside the village.’
‘No, you couldn’t have done,’ she denied immediately. Then she shook her head and began to laugh wildly. ‘Dear God, John.’ She broke off and sank down into the chair next to his desk, covering her face with her hands as she wept. ‘Oh John, I am in the most dreadful fix…’
‘What kind of fix?’ John asked her.
‘I have done the most dreadful thing, but I cannot tell you about it. I cannot tell anyone.’
‘Not even Lord Ralph?’ John questioned gently.
‘Especially not him. He must never know about any of this. John, you haven’t said anything to anyone about seeing me with…with him, have you? Please tell me you have not.’
‘Polly, what…’
‘No, you are not to ask me any questions. I forbid you to do so. I cannot bear it. I cannot…Especially not about him.’ Polly shuddered and then said in a low tortured voice, ‘Now I cannot even bear to say his name and yet…’
‘Polly, I hate to see you so distressed. If you cannot tell Lord Ralph what is upsetting you, then surely there must be someone who can help you? Your brother?’
‘Alfie? No, never.’ She made a small violent movement and the brown paper parcel slid from the desk on to the floor.
Automatically John bent to retrieve it, but the string had become dislodged and as he picked it up he saw to his shock that the parcel contained bank notes.
He looked up at Polly, unable to conceal his feelings, and saw that she was looking back at him. ‘Polly…’
‘I have to give him the money, John,’ she whispered. ‘He told me that if I do not he will tell…’
Her lips were trembling so much she could barely speak.
‘He is blackmailing you?’ John guessed, appalled.
Polly nodded her head.
‘But…Why? How?’ John demanded and then frowned as he wondered if perhaps Polly had confided to Sir Percival in an unguarded moment the same private secret she had told him. If so…
‘John, please, don’t be shocked or turn away from me,’ she begged him, white-faced. ‘I have been so very silly but I was so lonely, and he seemed kind at first. And fun. And then Alfie went all stuffy and told me that he was not considered the thing and was a “bit of a bad egg”.’ She mimicked her brother. ‘Well, you know that I can’t resist a challenge, John, and how I hate being told what to do.’ She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘So I thought…’
She paused and bit her lip as she looked away from him. ‘He invited me to have dinner with him, and I agreed. We arranged that I would go up to London and foolishly I imagined…’ She looked down at her lap and then twisted her hands together agitatedly before suddenly touching her engagement ring as though it were some kind of talisman.
‘He met me from the station and he was driving the most beautiful roadster, John. I begged him to let me drive it, and he said that he would, but that first he wanted to show me something.
‘I thought he was just taking me to see some famous sight or other, but he took me to this house…’ She gave a small shudder. ‘I should never have gone inside. I wasn’t going to but then he asked me if Alfie had warned me against him and of course after that I had to prove to him that I could do as I pleased.
‘He took me into the house, a dreadfully small shabby little place in Chelsea, of all places. Everyone knows that that is where men house their mistresses,’ she added disparagingly. ‘He made us both drinks. I can’t remember how many we had. And then he said that he would have to get changed before we went out for dinner. And then…’ She looked at him and John knew without her having to tell him what had happened.
‘He didn’t force me, John,’ she told him unsteadily. ‘I could have left. I should have left. But I had had so much to drink and…It was horrid. Awful. And I felt so…I couldn’t bear to look at my darling Ollie’s photograph afterwards. I felt so ashamed of myself, John.’ Tears were rolling down her cheeks. ‘I told him that it must never happen again but he just laughed at me and he kept on…And that was when I decided that the only way I could save myself was by marrying Ralphie.
‘But now Sir Percival is threatening to tell Ralphie’s family everything unless I pay him five hundred pounds.’ She paused. ‘He told me to take the money to our old rendezvous at the roadhouse tomorrow evening, but I just can’t. I don’t want to. I’m so afraid of him now, John, and of what he might try to make me do. Please say that you will give him the money for me? I know he comes here most days, and you are the only person I can ask. I know what you must be thinking about me, but please don’t judge me too harshly.’
‘Oh, Polly.’ John reached for her and took her in his arms, holding her as carefully as though she were made of glass. He ached with compassion for her and with savage anger against the man who was trying to destroy her.
‘I must go. Ralphie will be waiting. He telephoned this morning to say that he wanted to see me urgently before we go to see his mother. The poor darling probably wants to remind me not to smoke in front of her. She’s frightfully strait-laced, John, and I don’t think she approves of him marrying me at all. But he is so sweet, isn’t he? And so very like my darling Ollie.’
This was not the time to question the wisdom of her marriage, John acknowledged. She already had more than enough to bear.
‘You will see Sir Percival and give him the money for me, John, won’t you?’ She begged him again as she pulled on her gloves.
‘Yes,’ he assured her.
‘And you will never, ever mention what…what we have talked about again, to anyone, not even to me?’
‘Never,’ he told her.
‘Oh, John.’ There were fresh tears in her eyes as she leaned forward and brushed her lips against his chin, and then she was gone in a flurry of silk and scent, the tiny veil of her hat pulled down to shield her face as she stepped out into the sunshine and hurried back to her roadster.
Such happy news we have had from Iris, love. Not that I had any concerns, for I am feeling so very well. Mind you, your father was delighted when she assured us that everything is just as it should be and that we can expect your new brother or sister to be born on the due date.
We had planned to come down this month to see you in your show, but your father felt that this excessive heat we have been having might be too much for me. He is writing to John today with some good news for him as well. Someone from the government has been in touch with Gideon making enquiries about John’s airfield. It seems that the Royal Air Force are interested in buying the land from them.
Oh Hettie, love. I am so very happy – the only thing missing to make life perfect here in Winckley Square is you. I miss you so much and would love to have you here with me now. But I must not be selfish. You have your singing and I know now how much it means to you.
If we can’t get down to London to see you before the baby arrives, could you perhaps come home to see us? I miss you so much, Hettie.’
Your Loving Mother.
Hettie had read the letter Ellie had sent her over and over again, and as she wiped the tears from her eyes she told herself stoutly that they were tears of happiness and relief and not tears of misery or despair.
She missed her family and especially Ellie more than she wanted to admit – even to herself. She was, Hettie acknowledged, beginning to understand why Babs had given up her place in the chorus to return to Liverpool and Stan.
She had begun to long for Ellie’s next letter as soon as she had received the previous one, and she had taken to telephoning home twice a week instead of once.
Gideon and Ellie had both assured her that Ellie was perfectly well and that there were no fears for either her safety of that of her baby, but it wasn’t just her anxiety that made her long to see her, Hettie admitted. She missed Ellie in so many different ways, and she hadn’t even told her family yet about Jay’s decision, and that she was going to be leaving England in a few weeks’ time to travel to America and New York. She had been planning to tell them about it when they came to see her, but she could well understand why Gideon had not wanted to risk bringing Ellie to London whilst it had been so very hot.
Ellie’s baby was due early in July, and would be born whilst she was in New York. Fresh tears filled Hettie’s eyes. Suddenly more than anything else she wanted to be in Winckley Square. So much so that her longing for Ellie was a physical pain.
Ellie and Gideon would be so shocked if they knew of the future Jay was planning for her. She could always refuse him, of course, but did she really want to? She was being offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And it wasn’t as though she was going to New York for ever, Hettie comforted herself. Jay was already talking about bringing the new show over to England once it had achieved success on Broadway.
‘But Jay, what if it isn’t a success?’ Hettie had asked him worriedly. ‘What if no one in America likes me?’
‘America won’t like you, Hettie,’ Jay had answered her steadily, and her heart had lurched against her ribs as she wondered if he had been having second thoughts about her. And then he had given her a wide smile and had laughed as he told her, ‘Hettie, America will love you. Just as I already do,’ he had added softly, leaning forward in the privacy of his suite to kiss the vulnerable spot just beneath her ear, where his touch made her long to throw herself into his arms and beg him to do whatever he wished with her, despite her misgivings about him.
‘I have booked us adjoining suites for our Atlantic crossing, little Hettie,’ he had whispered to her, and Hettie had known that if at that moment he had swept her up into his arms and carried her through to his bedroom she would not have made one single word of protest. Or denial.
But he had not done so, and later, tucked up in her narrow single bed, she had admitted to herself that as much as she had been disappointed then in the heat of her excitement, now she was relieved.
Part of her problem was that without Babs she had no one to whom she could talk, or in whom she could confide; no one from the world she now inhabited who might have helped her with its unfamiliar rules and mores.
Very carefully Hettie folded Ellie’s letter. She had neither a rehearsal nor a music lesson this morning for the very important reason that Jay had cancelled both on her behalf because he was taking her for lunch and then, or so he had said, he was going to take her to Bond Street so that he could buy her a gown grand enough for the dinner party he was giving at the Ritz after their final show, and to which he had invited all manner of important theatrical people.
‘You will be my hostess that evening, Hettie,’ he had told her firmly. ‘My hostess, my leading lady, and my love.’
Tucking Ellie’s latest letter inside the box where she kept the others, Hettie opened her bedroom door. Mary was coming up the stairs in a terrible state of distress, clinging to the bannister rail as though she didn’t have the strength to walk. She was as white as a sheet, and tears were pouring down her face.
‘Mary, what is it?’ Hettie demanded anxiously, immediately rushing to her aid, putting her arm around Mary’s waist as she helped her.
‘Oh gawd, ’Ettie,’ Mary gulped as Hettie helped her into her own room. ‘I dunno what’s to become of me.’
‘You’ll find someone else to love you, Mary.’ Hettie tried to comfort her but Mary shook her head and laughed wildly.
‘It’s not that, ’Ettie,’ she said fiercely. ‘I’m carrying…’
‘Carrying?’ Blankly Hettie looked at her, but her hand had slipped from Mary’s waist to the tell-tale small bulge.
‘I’m up the spout, ’Ettie,’ Mary elaborated. ‘Dun for, and no mistake. And there ’im as wot’s responsible for it won’t even let me tell ’im that I’m ’aving his brat, never mind…Oh gawd, gawd, ’Ettie. I’m showing already and I’ve bin that sick.’
The two girls looked at one another.
‘But surely His Lordship will do something for you, Mary?’ Hettie whispered, both shocked and horrified.
‘Not ’im. No, there’s only one thing for it, ’Ettie, I’m going to have to get rid of it, and the sooner the better.’
‘Get rid of it?’ Hettie looked at her. ‘You mean, you will give your baby to a foundling hospital for adoption, Mary?’
‘No! If’n I have me way there won’t be no baby,’ Mary told her bluntly, and then added shakily, ‘Poor little bastard ’ud be better off not being born anyway. Me Mam won’t have me back ’ome, no way. Married again after me Da died, she did, and him as she’s married…’ Mary’s face closed up. ‘Seems like he thought his marriage licence gave him the right to ’ave me as well as ’er. Well, I soon let him know where ’e could get off, but me Mam went spare, called me a liar and a slut, she did.’ Fresh tears filled Mary’s eyes. ‘Said as ’ow I were mekkin’ it up and threw me out, she did. Fourteen, I were.’
‘Oh, Mary.’ Hettie’s own eyes were full of tears now as well.
Emotionally the two girls hugged one another.
‘I wish that Babs was here,’ Hettie told Mary.
‘Why? There’s nuffink she could do. There’s this doctor as I’ve heard about, ’Ettie. From one of the other girls.’
Releasing Hettie, Mary stepped back from her and started to twist the diamond ring on her right hand. ‘Expensive he is an’ all, but ’e’s supposed to be good. Doesn’t mek any mistakes, and doesn’t leave yer butchered and bleedin’ to death like some of ’em do, if you knows what I mean.’
Hettie didn’t, at least not entirely, although she was beginning to guess what Mary meant.
‘Mary, you can’t mean…you aren’t thinking,’ she began, horrified.
But Mary didn’t let her get any further. ‘I’ve got no choice, ’ave I?’ she demanded bitterly. ‘Who’s going to give a part to a chorus girl with a ninemonth belly on her? No one, that’s who! And I ain’t goin’ back ’ome to end up in the bleedin’ factory and ’avin’ everyone knowing. He would ’ave married me, ’Ettie, I know ’e he would. It’s his family as won’t let him. And if he had married me then this in ’ere would be going to be born a little lord or lady,’ she told Hettie savagely. ‘But he ain’t married me and this what he’s put in here, ain’t going to be born.’
‘Oh Mary, surely he will do something to help you?’ Hettie protested.
‘Not ’im. Not now. Too scared of his family, he is. Gorn away to stay with his fiancée’s family, he has. It’s in all the papers.
‘No, ’Ettie, me mind’s made up. Bin thinkin’ about it all week, I have. I reckon if I pawn his ring then I should ’ave more than enough to pay this doctor to get rid of his brat for me.’ Mary tossed her head defiantly. ‘Going to see the pawnbroker this afternoon, I am, and then…’ Mary shrugged. ‘At least this doctor as I’ve heard about knows his stuff. Lots of theatre girls ’ave been to ’im and none the worse for it. If you ask me it certainly beats drinking a bottle of gin and jumping off the top of the stairs,’ she added grimly.
‘Maybe there’s another way,’ Hettie wondered shakily. She hadn’t forgotten how the loss of her baby had affected Ellie – how could she ever forget it? And yet here was Mary talking about her coming baby as though she hated it, and talking about doing something that Hettie knew would be a terrible risk legally and physically.
Mary laughed bitterly. ‘Like what? I don’t want to be loaded down with a bastard brat anyway. Bloody nuisance it would be. No. I’ve made up me mind, ’Ettie. I just think ’Is bloody Lordship should be the one as has to pay for it and not me, that’s all.’
‘Mary, please don’t do it. When are you going to see this doctor?’ Hettie asked, thinking swiftly that maybe she could offer to go with Mary and try to dissuade her.
Mary hesitated and then told her dismissively, ‘I don’t know yet. And as for not doing it, like I just told yer I ’aven’t got any choice, and see ’ere, ’Ettie, don’t you go blabbing about this to anyone else. Especially not yer own chap. I’ve got enough to worry about wi’out losing me job as well. And mind as how the same thing don’t ’appen to you an’ all, ’Ettie,’ she added grimly.
The same thing happen to her? A shudder of terrified dread seized Hettie. Although she had been worrying about the disgrace and shame that would face her if she did become Jay’s mistress, until now she had naively not even thought of the kind of consequences Mary was facing. And she did not want to think about them now, Hettie admitted. It was too frightening.
‘But Mary, don’t you think you should tell the other girls?’ she suggested hesitantly.
Immediately Mary grabbed hold of Hettie’s arm, her fingernails biting deeply into Hettie’s flesh.
‘’Ere, ’Ettie, don’t you go saying nothing to them. I’ve got enough on me plate without ’aving to listen to them sayin’ as ’ow they knew all along sommat like this would ’appen. And besides…’ She frowned and looked at Hettie. ‘I shouldn’t ’ave said anything to you about any of this, ’Ettie, and if I was you I’d forget that I ’ad. If you tek me meaning.’
‘You mean about…about the baby?’ Hettie asked her unhappily.
‘Wot baby? I ain’t ’aving no baby, and mek sure you remember that, ’Ettie,’ Mary warned her fiercely.
By rights she ought to be enjoying her afternoon with Jay, Hettie reflected as Jay touched her arm and drew her attention to the gown displayed in the window of the Bond Street salon they were approaching, saying jovially, ‘That would suit you, Hettie. Come along, let’s go inside…’
Hettie held back and shook her head. Jay might be in high spirits, the sun might be shining, but instead of the elegant outfit in the window all she could see was Mary’s tear-streaked face.
John looked at his watch. It was 9.00 p.m. and the last of the growing number of more experienced pilots who owned their own flying machines, which they kept at the airfield, had just left. Sir Percival Montford certainly wouldn’t be coming into the club now, since officially it closed to non-experienced pilots at 6.00 p.m. The money Polly had left with him was safely locked away in his desk drawer.
Bitterly John acknowledged that, whilst Sir Percival might in terms of protocol be able to claim the title of gentleman, he would never be able to call himself a true gentleman. The man was an utter cad, ‘a bounder’, to use the term favoured by the young graduates who flocked to the club for flying lessons. And John had one or two things he intended to say to him about the kind of men who bullied and blackmailed vulnerable young women. John would have liked to see him barred immediately from membership of the flying club, but it concerned him that that might lead him to take revenge by blackening Polly’s name.
Something as serious as this was really a matter for the police, but John could well understand why Polly preferred to give Sir Percival the money he was demanding. Blackmailing a woman, having forced her into an intimate relationship, must surely be the most sickening of all male crime. But, even though he would be condemned and excluded from his social circle were his behaviour ever to come to light, it would be Polly who would suffer most from the salacious gossip that would inevitably result. Even so, John hated the thought of Sir Percival getting away with what he was doing. It offended not just his friendship with Polly but his sense of justice as well.
The June evenings were light and warm, and he had a sudden nostalgic yearning to be back in Lancashire, standing atop one of its hills and looking down the length of the Ribble valley. He missed the north and its people; the easy life of indulgence he was living here in the lush richness of Oxfordshire didn’t suit his northern temperament.
He missed his family, too, and his friends; what he wanted, John admitted to himself for the first time, was to go home.
The morning’s post had brought him a letter from Gideon alerting him to two offers for the airfield. One from the Royal Air Force, and the other from English Electric, who owned Dick Kerr’s, Preston’s tram-making business, and more famous some people liked to think for its all-girls football team than for its trams.
English Electric wanted the airfield for their new flying machine construction business, and Dick Kerr’s second cousin, Harold, had written to say that if John did feel like moving back up north they would be very keen to make use of his expertise.
The light was fading fast now and if he didn’t make a move he would be going to bed supperless, John warned himself as he stood up and stretched.
Did Hettie, like him, miss Preston and her family? The thought caught him unawares, jarring his whole body mid-stretch.
Hettie was gone from his life and should be gone from his thoughts, too, he told himself grimly as he started to lock up. His life and his future was here, now, in Oxfordshire, where he himself had chosen it to be. He had even begun to make new friends in the nearby village. Only the previous Sunday the wife of one of the church wardens had left her bashfully blushing daughter to step up to him and invite him to have his dinner with them next week after church.