Maggie's Girl (2 page)

‘I'll see you around, then?'

He was back in Oxford again in a day or two. Still, there was always next vacation.

‘We'll see.' Mary couldn't resist teasing. It was automatic, like breathing.

John Bertram smiled, his eyes full of regret. Mary watched the car roar off, a calculating look on her face.

There couldn't be much fun down at the university, and Mary was in search of a little fun before she got too old to enjoy herself.

One day, she thought, she would just up and away – anywhere, so long as it was away from Castle Maine, where nothing ever happened. Even Oxford would be better!

She started to walk again. Dr Hardaker, passing in his Ford, on his way to the City Hospital, pipped cheerily and put up his hand in greeting.

Now there was an attractive man. Mary waved back. Pity he was even older than her sister. Mary had no intention of growing old alone, like Maggie.

She reached the chemist's, which had in a new shade of lipstick that the counter girl said was just the thing to go with Mary's particular colouring. And she needed new stockings for the dance at the Palais tonight – so long as she could get round Mam …

Silas Bradshaw picked up the poker from the hearth and rattled it peevishly in the grate. Flames spluttered up, and as he'd intended, Adèle, in the chair opposite, woke with a start.

The look Silas threw her was an odd one.

She'd been only too quick to point out he was seventy-five, yet he was still fit and still had a fine head of hair. And he didn't fall asleep in front of the fire.

Adèle had finally coerced him into bringing in a younger man to run the factory – as if he was incapable! Sitting here twiddling his thumbs when there was work to be done …

‘You'll put that fire out,' Adèle warned, seeing he was in a temper.

Silas frowned, but put the poker down.

‘You're awake, then?'

‘So it seems.' She wasn't going to argue; she wanted to talk to him anyway. She picked up the newspaper and looked at the picture of Chamberlain on the front, waving his precious bit of paper.

‘Silas, will this peace pact hold?' It had been preying on her mind.

‘It probably won't.' She'd asked the question – Silas believed in a straight answer. ‘Perhaps for a while, that's all.'

Wasn't the last lot bad enough?

‘Don't you go worrying about John.' He was sure he'd winkled out the trouble, his sharp eyes narrowing. ‘I'll see he's all right, don't you bother. That lad's not going anywhere.'

‘If there's a war, how can he stay at home?'

‘There will be war,' Silas said calmly.

It was a good job he'd hung on to the engineering works. If he'd listened to all Adèle had to say about things becoming too much for him, they'd have lost a pretty packet! The works, put to munitions, would be worth a mint. Added to the factory turning out uniforms, the coffers would be overflowing.

‘We'll get John out of university and set on in the factory. I'll pull a few strings,' he said. ‘There's more important work for him here than—'

What he was going to say next, though Adèle could well guess at it, was lost as voices came from the hall. Silas was already getting up as John came in, followed by Cliff and another boy. Young Harry Bates.

‘John! What a lovely surprise!' Adèle rose. ‘And Clifford, too! And it's Harry, isn't it?'

She didn't dare to look at Silas. The boy was the spit of Ned at
his age, and she only thanked the Lord Silas didn't have the wit to guess the truth.

‘I half expected you back at Oxford already, John,' she went on.

‘I'm off on Tuesday, as a matter of fact. Just thought I'd motor down and say cheerio. We picked this young shaver up on the way, didn't we, Cliff?'

‘If you'd only come earlier, I could have taken you down the factory,' his grandfather growled. ‘It's about time you
familiarised
yourself with the place. You'll be done at that grand university soon enough.'

John frowned, looking helplessly towards his grandmother.

Adèle knew he wanted to follow his stepfather into the motorcar business, and she'd tried to tell Silas, but he never had heard anything he didn't like.

John turned the talk to next year at university, his second, while Silas fumbled in his waistcoat pocket for a coin for Clifford. Then he gave Harry the same, ruffling the boy's hair good-naturedly.

Harry looked anxious, so Adèle tried to put him at his ease, asking him about school and what he might want to do once he left.

‘I don't want to go down the mines,' was all he said, going red.

Silas's mine or Silas's factory – there wasn't any other choice in Castle Maine for a boy of Harry's standing. Good mining stock.

‘It was kind of you to tip Harry,' Adèle remarked after the boys had left, tumbling out of the house as quickly as they'd arrived, leaving a strange quiet in their wake.

‘I don't suppose the lad gets much, unlike young Clifford!'
Silas turned the conversation on to safer ground. Adèle saw too much, he thought. It would never do if she were to have the slightest suspicion about her precious son, Ned.

‘Cliff's turning into a fine boy – he takes after Bertie! Only thank the Lord he's too young for this lot blowing up.'

How many other couples, he wondered, were in their
situation
– having lost both boys in the Great War, and with a grandson of an age for this one?

He tried to reassure her about John, while she tried to tell him about John's real plans after university. Silas turned a deaf ear, and was relieved when she finally went upstairs to dress.

That had been altogether too close for comfort. He couldn't begin to imagine all the upset it would cause if Adèle ever discovered an off-shoot of her precious Ned's was growing right under her nose, here in Castle Maine. That boy Harry! It was the biggest wonder she'd never seen the likeness, but there it was! Folk saw what they wanted to see, and that was a fact.

He'd done his best to help Daisy Bridges, and it wasn't as if he didn't owe her father enough already. Silas knew full well if it hadn't been for William Oakes all those long years ago, the factory would never have got off the ground in the first place. Businessmen trusted William's common sense – they hadn't trusted Silas, not then.

This business with Ned – at last it had spurred him into doing what he should have done long since. Better late than never! William knew it, too; the knowledge had been there in his eyes when Silas said he was settling money on him.

‘I don't want your money!' he complained.

‘There's others might have a right to it,' Silas began, aware he was treading on dangerous ground. ‘It's only right, William!'

‘You think money makes it right?' William glared up at him from under shaggy eyebrows.

‘It is when it's owed. As much as money can make a thing right.' Silas blustered on, looking for the appropriate thing to say and failing miserably.

‘I need to do this, William.' At last he stumbled on the right words. ‘Tell 'em it's something long overdue from when we were young.'

The two old men had stood in that cramped little cottage, all pretensions stripped away. After all they'd been through, they were just two old friends doing what they could to right a wrong.

And if it gave Silas's foolish old heart a lift, seeing one or the other of them when he was about his legitimate business in town – that girl, Maggie, for instance – Ned's daughter! Well, he was pleased.

He knew he had to keep it to himself. William would never tell a soul – he appreciated peace and quiet too much, and all hell would break loose if this ever came out.

There was no denying Maggie was a fine girl, if ever there was one. A chip off the old block, Silas thought.

He'd done his best to put things right. Family was family, when all was said and done…

‘You had no business going anywhere other than straight home,' Maggie said sharply.

‘Sorry, Mam.' Harry hung his head, looking not one whit ashamed, and his mother bit her lip. This boy! Whatever should she do with him? He was getting to be a handful, and that was a fact.

‘I haven't time for this now – it'll have to wait until I get back!'
She knew as she spoke that she was letting him get away with too much – again! She'd tried her best, but he was of an age when he needed a man's hand.

Shaking her head, she let herself out of the house, calling a hasty goodbye to Holly and Gramps and her mam, who'd just arrived, flustered, full of some tale about Mary in trouble at work.

Maggie had no time to listen, and felt guilty. Late as ever, she was still buttoning her coat as she ran for the bus.

The night was wet, the pavements shiny, almost translucent under the lamplight. There was a bitter wind, and the bus was late. She stared fretfully along the dimly-lit street, willing it to arrive.

Sister Aspen never listened to excuses about transport; her nurses were either on time or not on time. Woe betide one of them if she was late!

Women's Surgical was a busy ward; Sister Aspen quite rightly had no interest in her nurses' private life, only the standard of care to which they aspired. Normally Maggie got on well with her, but she'd still be in for a ticking-off if she was late.

She was a competent nurse, whatever mess she made of the rest of her life. Nursing was her one salvation.

A car drew into the kerb.

‘Do you want a lift in?'

Tony Blount stuck his head out of the window, grinning amiably. He was a good-looking man, a year or two older than Maggie. He'd been around, knew what was what, someone had told her when she'd asked about him.

Tony had chatted her up at a party which she'd left early, before things became too involved. Partly she regretted leaving, not returning his too obvious interest, but complications were the last thing she needed in her life.

Since Hughie, she'd tried going out with other men, nice men, men she liked. Things just fizzled out somehow. Who could compare to Hughie?

Her mother, in her forthright way, said Hughie hadn't been a plaster saint and Maggie was still young; she should and ought to start living her life again.

She couldn't help the way she felt.

All this went through her mind in an instant, but it was raining and she might have missed her bus.

‘Won't it be out of your way?' She stooped to the window.

‘I've business in Nottingham. Hop in.'

‘Thanks, then!'

She wasn't really sure she should have accepted. There was something about this man, even though she'd only met him the once….

The party had been for one of the nurses, at a local hotel. Maggie had merely been dragged along protesting, though
no-one
took the slightest notice. The nurse in question complained Maggie never went anywhere, so she had to come to this party.

Maggie couldn't argue with that. Normally her life was the hospital and home, caring for her grandfather and the children. She'd made some kind of life for herself, and did her best to shut her mind to anything else.

‘Why haven't we bumped into each other before?' Tony had said that evening, looking at her in a way Maggie recognised. He wanted more than a casual acquaintance, she could see.

He'd stayed with her for the rest of the evening, and despite her reservations, she found herself responding. There was
something
very attractive about him. She enjoyed his company, which shocked her once she realised it. She was normally so wary of other men.

She couldn't let herself go, that was the problem. He was a nice man and she had liked him….

Yet here she was, in his car. She pulled her cloak more closely round herself.

‘Don't look so worried.' He smiled. ‘I really have got business in Nottingham, and I pass the hospital on the way in. It's too cold for hanging round bus stops.'

The car was warm, the wipers brushing the rain into smudges on the windscreen curiously restful. She wasn't even going to be late for work.

Maggie began to relax at last, for the first time that day. She settled back against the seat, her mind wandering to Harry, and then the trouble Mam seemed to be having with Mary. There was so much going on in their lives.

Surprisingly, as the car sped towards Nottingham, Tony began to talk about himself, as if he was trying to put her at her ease.

She listened with half an ear to how he'd grown up in London, how he'd become a salesman, tired of the life and then, finding himself on business in this neck of the woods and deciding he liked it, made up his mind to stay.

He did this and that, he said, turning towards her and
grinning
. He made his living in any way he could.

His eyes often slewed sideways to watch her face. She wished he'd keep them on the road.

‘I'm pleased I did decide to stay,' he added, and she frowned, disliking the implication, and the little smile he shot her as he spoke. She had no intention of getting involved with Tony Blount, nice as he seemed.

She forced her mind to the dark country road ahead, crowded by trees. Denuded branches, rattled by the wind, drooped and
clunked on the roof of the car. Rain gusted against the
windscreen
, but inside was warm, safe.

A fox froze on the road, its eyes burning in the headlights, and then melted suddenly away. The countryside was alive. She was thankful when they came to the outskirts of Nottingham, and the hospital loomed.

‘It's good of you,' she said as the car turned through the gates.

‘I've enjoyed it,' he answered. He'd pulled up in a quiet corner, turning to look at her, obviously thinking before he went on.

‘I mean I've enjoyed your company, Maggie. Look, I'd like us to go out together one evening.'