Full Circle by Connie Monk Read Free Book Online Page A

had been something no one mentioned. David had never liked her, he mused, looking back down the years, but he never went out with them or had any fun like I did. She was something special; I used to think so even when I was a kid. And Mum never seemed bothered. Poor old Mum, she never seemed to look further than what the farm was producing, that and the home. Perhaps men were different from women, he told himself. He was no inexperienced youth and he’d had women friends, but no thought of marriage. He should never have let himself take what Bella had so blatantly offered during that first hour of the year; for him it had meant no more than a passing whim whilst to her it had been the experience that had changed her life – changed both their lives as it had turned out. But without the coming child, would he have found it in his heart to cast Bella aside? She would be a good wife to him, loyal and caring; she would be a perfect mother to their children. So what was wrong? Why didn’t he look to the future with enthusiasm?
    Turning over, he was determined to sleep, but his mind moved on to his father. It bothered him to think of him living alone in the farmhouse with just Eva Johnson coming across from her cottage every day to ‘give the place a tidy through’ as she put it, making sure that when she went home she left him a meal that, at the most, only needed warming in the oven. No wonder the poor chap looked so peaky. He’d have another talk to him about getting more help on the land. If he’d been down to The Retreat talking to the woman who said she was buying it perhaps he had come to an arrangement with her that she wouldn’t go ahead. Then they could put a manager in to oversee the growing of the crops and take the poor old lad back to live with them. Bella would keep him cheerful; he’d enjoy having a pretty girl making a fuss of him.
    Then his mind jumped back to Bella. She deserved a husband who really adored her, a young chap with a steady job who would look for nothing more than an unchanging routine, who would make love to her in a warm bed a couple of times a week and be as satisfied as she was herself. Poor kid. Even being part of a family makes her happy. She’s had no proper life at all, evacuated when she was so young that she can’t remember much about her parents, both killed early in the war. What a rotten life for her. Evacuated until the end of the war and then put in an orphanage.
    Turning over to face her, he put his arm protectively across her. Bella was safe with him now. As he had many times before, he promised himself that he would be the best husband he could possibly be. She deserved nothing less. And, as he also had so often, he silently vowed that he would make her happy always.
    As Louisa worked out her three months’ notice and the solicitors dealt with probate, for her the time seemed to drag. Moving away from her flat was so different from moving into it. She remembered how proud she had been seven years previously when she left her bedsit and rented her first real home. Now she saw it differently. The furniture wasn’t her own; the curtains weren’t of her choosing and neither were the rugs. Soon she would be in her own home and even though everything there had been provided by the aunt she could hardly remember, the thought pleased her and gave her a sense of belonging. The only thing that surprised and disappointed her was that the garden was a shambles, but in the life she envisaged ahead of her she would have plenty of time to work on it.
    At last the day came when, with her portmanteau collected by the carrier from the railway station, she locked her front door, returned the key to the agent and then walked briskly to the station. This was the beginning of a new life; no longer would her days be ruled by the clock. She had always accepted the town she had grown up in, the sound of the biscuit factory hooter at the beginning and