Charlotte heard the news about Major Bellinger when she went to the post office on Tuesday morning.
‘Very sad, isn’t it?’ said Nancy Bright. ‘Poor Mrs Bellinger, so sudden, such a shock.’
‘It always is a shock somehow,’ Charlotte agreed, ‘even if you have been expecting it.’
‘Which she wasn’t, poor lady!’ sighed Nancy. ‘Well, at least she’s got Felix down with her now, though I did hear he was too late to see his father alive. Come down by train, he did, yesterday, with his new wife. She’ll be a great comfort to him, won’t she?’
‘I expect she will,’ agreed Charlotte. ‘I’ll have a book of stamps, please, Nancy.’
‘Ooh! Writing lots of letters, are you? I love getting letters, don’t you? Something exciting or unexpected coming in through your letter box.’
Clearly Nancy was hoping to hear to whom Charlotte was writing, but Charlotte didn’t enlighten her. She simply smiled and called Johnny away from the window.
‘But, Mummy,’ he said, ‘there’s Auntie Caro.’
Charlotte looked out and saw Caroline Morrison crossing the green from the vicarage, where she was staying until her marriage with Dr Masters in ten days’ time.
‘So she is,’ said Charlotte. ‘Let’s go and say hallo to her, shall we? Bye, Nancy.’
Outside, she found Caroline cooing to baby Edie, who was tucked up in her pram.
‘Caroline,’ called Charlotte as she came out into the street. ‘Lovely morning!’
‘Hallo, Charlotte, just saying good morning to my goddaughter.’ She turned to Johnny who was pulling at her skirt. ‘And hallo to you, young monster,’ she said and bent to give him a hug.
‘I not a monster,’ Johnny informed her. ‘I’m a hunter!’
‘Are you indeed?’ laughed Caroline, before turning to Charlotte and saying, ‘Have you got time for a cup of tea at Sally’s?’
‘Of course,’ said Charlotte, ‘that’d be lovely. Come on, Johnny, if you’re good you can have some milk and a sticky bun.’
Together they walked across the green to Ye Olde Tea Shoppe. There was nothing ‘olde’ about this tea shop. It was a new venture of Sally Prynne’s. Since her daughter, Sandra, had married and moved to Weston-super-Mare, she’d found herself with nothing to do. She persuaded her husband, Arthur, that she should use the front room of their cottage as a tea room.
‘There isn’t nowhere for anyone to get a cup of tea and have a chat in this village,’ she said. ‘I’m going to give it a go.’
‘There’s the Magpie,’ said Arthur.
‘That’s a pub, not a tea room. What this village needs is a nice little caff where you can take the weight off your feet, have a cup of tea, a piece of cake an’ a chat.’
‘Suit yourself, girl,’ Arthur said. ‘Can’t do no harm to try, like.’
He painted a sign to hang over their front door, though anything less like ‘an olde tea shoppe’ than Sally Prynne’s front room, Billy’d said when he first saw it, would be hard to imagine. But surprisingly it had taken off and most mornings Sally had customers sitting at one of the two tables in her front room, drinking tea and exchanging gossip.
Johnny was given his promised milk and sticky bun and then sent out to play in the Prynnes’ backyard.
‘It’s very sad about Peter Bellinger, isn’t it?’ said Caroline as she poured the tea. ‘Avril told me that it was you who raised the alarm.’
‘Well, I ran for Dr Masters...’
‘And we weren’t there. We’d gone to Bristol to collect Henry’s wedding suit from the tailor’s. Poor Henry, he felt awful that he wasn’t there to render first aid.’
‘I don’t think it would have made any difference,’ Charlotte said. ‘The major hadn’t moved again when the ambulance came.’
‘I hear the funeral’s on Friday,’ Caroline said. ‘David went round there this morning.’
‘You are up with the news,’ Charlotte laughed, ‘and I bet it’ll be just the same when you’re Mrs Doctor!’
‘Actually, Charlotte, I do have a piece of news that may interest you. You remember Matron at St Michael’s and Livingston Road?’
‘Of course I do,’ replied Charlotte. ‘I’m never likely to forget anyone who looked after me. What about her?’
‘Well, I had a letter from her yesterday.’
‘Did you? Is she keeping well? Is she still at Livingston Road?’
‘Yes to both those questions,’ Caroline said. ‘But more important, she wrote to me about you.’
‘Me? Why me?’
‘Apparently someone came looking for you last week and Mrs Burton remembered him well.’
Charlotte’s eyes opened wide. ‘Harry?’
Caroline nodded. ‘Harry.’
‘Did she tell him where I am?’
‘No. He spoke to the new supervisor, Mrs Acton, and of course she’d never heard of you. She insisted that whoever you were, if you had been there during the war, you weren’t any more. Harry was still at the gate and Mrs Burton saw him. At first she didn’t recognise him, but when she heard his name was Harry, she knew exactly who he was. She’s written to me to warn you that he’s looking for you. He may never find you, but she thought you ought to know.’
Charlotte took a sip of her tea and then put down her cup and looked earnestly at Caroline.
‘I think he will find me.’
‘Do you? Why?’
‘I had a letter this morning. From Aunt Naomi.’
‘And?’
‘And somehow, Harry had found her. He just turned up on her doorstep and asked if I was there.’
‘And she told him where you are?’ Caroline sounded surprised. All Charlotte’s friends knew how casual Harry had been about his friendship with Charlotte, or Lisa as he still called her, and few of them would have wanted her to revive a contact that had caused her so much sadness in the past.
‘Not exactly. She knows that Billy doesn’t like him and so she’d decided to say she didn’t know. Trouble is, young Nicky came home from school for his dinner. She told him Harry was an old friend of mine and Nicky told Harry how they had been to Wynsdown to baby Edie’s christening. She didn’t enlarge on what Nicky had said, but she thinks the damage was done.’
‘So you think he’ll turn up here?’
Charlotte shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Aunt Naomi said that he’s been in Australia ever since the end of the war. Remember, he wanted me to go with him?’
Caroline nodded. ‘I remember.’
‘Well, Aunt Naomi says that he’s going back, but he’d hoped to see me again before he went. He sent me his love.’
‘Hmm,’ Caroline gave a sigh, ‘he’s certainly been looking for you. Do you want to see him?’
‘I don’t know. Yes. I s’pose so. I know Billy won’t like it if he turns up, but, well, Harry has always been sort of special, you know?’
Caroline nodded, she did know Harry was special, even though she wished he weren’t. ‘So,’ she said, ‘are you going to warn Billy that he might just appear?’
‘I don’t know.’ Charlotte looked confused. ‘He won’t like it if he does, but if I say he might and then he doesn’t, well, I’ll have upset Billy for nothing. Aunt Naomi says she doesn’t think he will come. He doesn’t have an actual address.’
‘Do you think that will stop him? We’re talking about Harry, remember.’
‘I don’t know,’ cried Charlotte, an edge of panic to her voice. ‘And I don’t know what to do. What do you think? Wouldn’t it be better to say nothing for the time being? No need to rock any boats needlessly?’
Caroline, remembering how her interference in things between Harry and Charlotte had caused trouble before, said, ‘It’s a decision you’ve got to make for yourself, Charlotte. I can’t tell you what to do.’
Silence rested between them for a moment and then Caroline said, ‘Billy has nothing to fear from Harry, has he, Charlotte?’
‘No!’ responded Charlotte fiercely. ‘Of course he hasn’t.’
‘Then maybe you should tell him about your aunt Naomi’s letter. Show it to him. I mean, if you don’t and then Harry does appear, and Billy thinks you knew he was coming, well, then he might feel you’d been hiding it from him for a reason. That there was something to hide.’
Charlotte looked at her with mute appeal and Caroline reached forward and took her hand. ‘Only you can make the decision, Charlotte. I shall say nothing about the letter from Mrs Burton to anyone else, I promise, so if you decided to say nothing there’s no reason for anyone else to know.’
At that moment, Johnny appeared in tears. ‘I felled over,’ he said, ‘and my leg’s hurt.’ He displayed a graze on his knee, and when suitable sympathy had been shown, he allowed Charlotte to take him into Sally’s kitchen to bathe the knee.
‘It doesn’t need a plaster,’ she told him as she patted the knee dry.
‘It does!’ Johnny assured her earnestly. ‘It does, there’s blood. Blood needs a plaster.’
‘Well, we haven’t got one here, so we’d better go home and find one, hadn’t we?’
‘Don’t worry about Harry,’ Caroline said as they stood together on the green. ‘If he does turn up, well, sufficient unto the day...’
Charlotte walked home with the children and when the plaster had been applied, lunch had been eaten and they were both in their beds for their afternoon nap, she sat down in the kitchen with another cup of tea and reread Naomi’s letter.
Ivy Cottage
Feneton
Suffolk
Dearest Lisa
How are you all down there in Wynsdown? I hope you’re all keeping well as we are here. We have moved into our new home now, I’ve put the address at the top, and are very happy here. It’s ever so nice having our own home again. A place just for us where we can shut the door on the world outside. Dan was real chuffed when you asked him to be little Edie’s godfather. We all wish you were living a bit closer so we could see you more often. Still, never mind, eh?
I thought you might like to know that that lad what you used to know in the war, Harry Black, turned up here the other day. He said he was trying to find you and was you living here with us? I told him no, so then he asked where you was living. I wasn’t going to tell him without asking you first because I know your Billy ain’t too keen on him. Anyhow Harry said he’d been in Australia and was home in London on business and wanted to see you. I think he’s been looking for you at Livingston House and Kemble Street which was how he found us. That nosy cow Shirley from across the road, told him where we’d moved to, and so he’d come looking.
I wasn’t going to tell him where you was but then young Nick come home from school for his dinner and he spilled the beans. Said we’d been to see you in Wynsdown for Edie’s Christening. I don’t know if Harry knows where Wynsdown is, but I thought I ought to warn you that he’s looking for you and he might show up. He told me he was going back to Australia soon, so he may not have time. I hope he goes there for good. He may have looked after you at school, but you’ve got your Billy to look after you now.
Do write me a line sometime soon and let us know how you’re going on. I bet young Johnny is shooting up. It won’t be long before he goes to school, will it?
Uncle Dan’s at work just now, but if he was here I know he’d send you all his love and a special kiss for little Edie.
Love from Aunt Naomi.
Dear Aunt Naomi, thought Charlotte, still trying to look after me. I wish they lived nearer, too.
She sighed and folding the letter again, put it back in its envelope and slipping it into the dresser drawer turned her attention to preparing the vegetables for supper.