Winter Roses by Amy Myers Read Free Book Online Page A

when the babe was started.’
    ‘That’s different. Me being married to a German, and then living with Frank. It would lose the Rector respect in the village.’
    Margaret sat down after giving Lizzie a nice strong cup of tea. She had to take this carefully. ‘There was a time when I’d have agreed with you, Lizzie, but that time’s gone now. Fred’s gone, Joe’s gone, your Frank’s gone. I don’t think folk look like they used to on these things. We’re all beginning to settle down and get on with our lives and problems instead of minding everyone else’s. Joe says even them Germans are just like us really, young and scared most of them.’ She summoned her strength for a last assault. ‘Why don’t you come here, Lizzie? You can take the baby back to the cottage when you’re ready.’
    ‘If it’s still there.’
    ‘What do you mean, Lizzie Dibble?’ What was this? Margaret watched her daughter, stirring her tea a little too carefully. For a start, there was no sugar in it, not even consip, the nasty stuff they gave you instead.
    ‘Now old Swinford-Browne is leaving Ashden, he’s letting the hop gardens go. Miss Caroline says that he’ll pay for the pickers for one last season, and then they’ll be under the Army, and sold when the war ends. Mayhap there’ll be no job for Frank to come home to, and perhaps no cottage. We’ve no rights.’
    Margaret saw to the heart of the problem, and spoke right out. ‘You don’t know which of them to choose, do you, Lizzie? Rudolf or Frank. You want ’em both.’
    ‘Oh, Ma.’ Lizzie’s eyes filled with tears like they hadn’t done since she was a child in short pinafores.
    ‘You can’t have ’em both, love, but if you’re thinking that Frank might ever let you down, I’ll say this for him, I don’t think he will. He’ll be back for you.’ Margaret paused. ‘Trouble is, so will Rudolf. Best be prepared.’
    ‘All right, Mum, I’ll come.’ Lizzie glared just to show she wasn’t entirely convinced.
    ‘Come?’ Margaret’s imagination was now busy defending Lizzie against two men with rights over her.
    ‘Here to have the baby,’ Lizzie patiently amplified.
    Margaret managed to hide her pleasure. ‘You’ll have to mind your p’s and q’s, my girl.’
    ‘Can’t promise that.’ Lizzie giggled.
    When she had gone, Margaret sat down again to recover from the shock of having had a mother–daughter talk at last. And a baby in the house again. Fred would have liked that. That brought unhappy thoughts rushing back, which usually only troubled her during the long nights when she woke up at three or four in the morning. It was like having a continuous tooth being pulled out. Perhaps if Myrtle left, Lizzie could even be persuaded to stay on and … no, she couldn’t ask that of Mrs Lilley. They had one child in the house already, running about everywhere now she was over a year old. Elizabeth Agnes was a good baby, but even good babies had to be watched. At any hint of trouble, she knew Agnes would suggest she went back to live with Mrs Thorn while the war was on, but Margaret knew how much she’d hate it, and couldn’t blame her. Living with them Thorns was a fate she wouldn’t wish on nobody.
    It suddenly occurred to her that Lizzie had never said exactly what she’d visited for this morning. Could it be thataccepting Mrs Lilley’s offer was in her mind all the time? Her Lizzie was an obstinate little thing, and would want to be talked into it. Margaret was momentarily incensed, and then she thought what Percy would say – he always did: ‘She’s a chip off the old block, Daisy.’ That was his pet name for her, not that it was used much now. He’d use it when she told him the grand news, though. A baby in the house. Their baby. She laughed with pleasure. Then she resumed mincing the meat with renewed zest. ‘Ye belong to Jesus, Children of the Lord.’
    Her voice bawled out in triumph over the gardens, and she bustled happily around her