All I Have to Give by Mary Wood Read Free Book Online Page B

mouth, and blood seeped down her throat.
    A voice – a posh male voice – shouted, ‘Now then, there is no need for that. Someone go and fetch the police.’
    Only one of her eyes would open, but with it she stared with hatred at Beryl. Lit by the light of the lamp that Paddy had retrieved, Beryl’s face was a river of tears and blood.
‘I’m sorry, our Ada, I’m reet sorry. I didn’t think as you’d care. You never had a good word for Paddy, and I . . . well, I never get owt from Bill, he . . . he
can’t do it.’
    ‘Sorry? You bitch! You have all of this and you try to take Paddy an’ all. How could you? Such as he is, he is all that I have . . .’ Ada’s voice had gone from a nasty
grating tone to whimpering the last few words.
    ‘She was for paying me, Ada. It wasn’t that I was for wanting to do it – it was nothing to me. I just wanted to bring some money home to you.’
    Beryl turned on Paddy, hitting out, but he caught her fist and snarled at her, ‘Isn’t it that you’re just a whore in reverse? You’re not for selling it; you’re for
buying a cock to satisfy yourself with. And I was easy pickings – me being in need of the money.’ With this, he flung her away from him.
    A moment’s silence was shattered by a high-pitched scream from Beryl, and with it words that Ada wished she’d never have to hear: ‘I’m having your babby. I’m five
months gone, you stinking sod! You said you would leave Ada for me, so I let you go all the way! Oh God . . . Bill can’t have kids, so he’ll know!’
    Getting up off the floor, Ada felt the pity of the situation. Some of that pity was for this sister of hers, who had everything and yet nothing; and for Bill, poor Bill . . . But most of what
she felt wasn’t pity at all, but loneliness. That her own sister could plot to take her man. That she should be carrying a babby, which she herself could no longer give him. That all the
babbies she had given Paddy should be taken from her – for surely that is what would happen to Jimmy? The bloody Germans would shoot him, or blow him up. She’d resigned herself to
that.
    Turning away, she mustered all the strength and dignity she could and limped off down the hill. Life had changed. It was not her life any more. She was not herself any more. But she would have
to get on with it. Whatever Paddy decided to do, she would go and get that job at the munitions factory. That would save her. She would work hard, and not give herself time to think of all that
used to be. Instead she would put away as much money as she could – and in a safer place than her bag – and get herself out and away from it all.

4
Eloise and Andrina
    Rossworth Hall, Leicestershire, July 1916
An unbearable life
    ‘I’m so bored, Eloise. Nothing fun happens any more. It’s all the fault of this bloody war!’ Andrina’s sigh travelled heavily around the room. She
and Eloise were engaged in embroidering cushion covers that would be sent to a local fete, which was being held to help raise funds for the war effort.
    They sat facing each other on dainty Queen Anne chairs, one each side of the French windows that overlooked the croquet lawn of Rossworth Hall. It was a pleasant room decorated in restful
colours – beiges and pale greens – and, besides the chairs, which were covered in a light-green velvet, two pink-and-green Regency striped sofas (also in Queen Anne style) stood against
the walls opposite each other and facing the centre of the room. Ornate occasional tables were placed in handy positions and held writing cases and pens, and workboxes with silk threads and needles
inside, and one was piled high with books. It was a room reserved for quiet activities such as they were doing now, or for reading – something Eloise did a lot of, but Andrina rarely bothered
with. Unless, of course, it was
The Queen
magazine, and then she liked to catch up on the latest gossip and fashions; but of late even that had been full of