First Time: Bryce Series of Romantic Mysteries, #2

By Patricia Greasby

Second in a series of romantic mysteries

Family and friends gather to help Ann and Stephen celebrate their special day. Each guest has a story to tell: Peter's memories of Susan, the discovery of Elliston House. Sisters, Alice and Audrey, one having raised children apparently abandoned by the other. Peter's childhood with a father figure harbouring double standards.  The consequences of his sister's naivety. Trust betrayed and a disappearance leads to an underground nightmare.  Can happiness be sealed for more than one generation of the Bryce family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patricia Greasby
• Release date: May 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386956136

Patricia Greasby

Over the last thirty years Patricia has slotted in writing as a hobby around her husband, three sons and a career in insurance and accountancy.  For at least twenty years she attended Creative Writing classes at a local college. Sons now married with families of their own she and her husband recently retired, she expected to have more time to dedicate to a hobby which has become a passion.  Now Patricia slots in writing between grandchildren, outings with her husband and other hobbies...but with just as much passion. Facebook: Patricia Greasby Author patriciagreasby@btinternet .com

Book preview

FIRST TIME

CHAPTER 1

––––––––

‘Ann, come away from the window.’

In an annex of the Wheatcroft Hotel, Ann, wrapped in a dressing gown, pressed her forehead against a second-floor window. ‘I can see the courtyard from here.’

‘Come away, it’s bad luck.’ Fiona joined Ann, kneeling on a sofa, and craned her neck to see where, in the full glare of an August sun, guests were assembling. ‘I see the three witches have arrived.’

‘What?’ Ann twisted around, astonished by the remark from her future sister-in-law.

‘Jules’ name for Aunt Alice, Audrey and ... your mother.’

‘Really.’ Ann turned back to the window. ‘I hope his speech won’t be too embarrassing, I’m nervous enough as it is.’

She looked out at Julian. Stephen’s elder brother, the obvious choice for best man, was taking the responsibility seriously. A pity, Ann thought, that a self-righteous aspect spoilt his general good looks. In a grey morning suit, he escorted Alice, Audrey and Ann’s mother across the courtyard.

Ann strained to see further. ‘Look, near that tree.’ Stephen, also attired in formal wear, stooped to kiss each of the old ladies.

Ann rested her chin on a fist and gazed at the man she was about to marry. More slightly built than his brother, his hair lighter, a little less curly, he looked relaxed, the ladies charmed by his easy smile.

‘Come away,’ Fiona insisted.

‘It’s bad luck if the groom should see the bride,’ Ann reasoned, ‘not the other way around.’

Fiona pulled a curtain across the window. ‘Peter will be here soon, and you’re not dressed.’

Ann let her dressing gown ripple to the floor. ‘I wish we’d decided on a small family wedding. I didn’t dream there’d be so many acceptances at such short notice.’ She stepped into her ivory satin wedding dress.

Fiona pulled up the zip and adjusted the dress on Ann's shoulders. She straightened a narrow band supporting three tiny coral roses in Ann’s hair. Low-heeled satin shoes completed the outfit.

Ann faced a full-length mirror. The calf-length simply styled dress with a soft neckline, the ideal choice for an older bride, flattered her still youthful figure.

‘Oh, Ann,’ Fiona gasped. ‘You look twenty-five.’

‘Come off it,’ she laughed, standing aside to allow Fiona to check her own appearance. A fitted coral dress complimented Ann’s matron of honour. A slim natural blonde, Fiona looked immaculate – as always.

*

The sun beat down relentlessly on guests milling in the hotel forecourt. It bleached colour from a kaleidoscope of ladies’ fashions and caused the men to squint and gently perspire.

Peter greeted a young woman, glamorous in a flowing yellow outfit. ‘Jennifer. Glad you could make it at such short notice.’ He ducked below her wide-brimmed hat to kiss her cheek.

‘It took some juggling with film schedules, but I wouldn’t miss this for the world.’ She looked around. ‘It seems a good few have made time to be here. Stephen is well thought of in the business.’

Peter produced a rare smile, proud his younger son had achieved so much. They wandered towards a ground-floor room where Ann’s sons, Richard and Christopher, stationed either side of the door, handed out Order of Service sheets.

‘Okay, boys?’ Peter asked.

‘Sure.’ Chris, a cheerful twenty-four-year old grinned. The name of his accompanying guest had been changed several times on the seating plan as girlfriends fell from grace.

An indignant Richard fingered a stiff collar above his cravat. ‘Of course.’

Another time, the attitude of Ann’s elder son would have riled him, but Peter merely said, ‘At least it’s cooler in here.’ In his own youth the slightest dissent would have earned a clip across the ear, one such incident having left him deaf for days.

‘They’ve picked a grand day for it.’ A broad Midlands accent indicated an elderly couple were Ann’s relations.

‘They have indeed,’ Peter agreed. He escorted Jennifer to a seat before again going outside. Squinting against the glare, he acknowledged other guests as they entered the room, a few polite words for each. He spotted his sons in the scant shade of a potted tree, Julian’s hand on his brother’s shoulder as Stephen kissed the cheek of each of the three old ladies encircling him.

Peter joined the group. ‘Come along, ladies, time you were inside.’

‘Inside?’ a thin voice from under the brim of a pale blue hat asked. ‘Is it time for lunch?’

‘Stephen’s getting married, Aunt Alice,’ Julian explained. ‘Here’s Jean with your chair.’

Peter’s sister hurried from the foyer pushing a lightweight wheelchair. ‘Here we are, Aunt Alice.’ Addressing the others she said, ‘I would have fetched it earlier, but she insisted she could walk.’

Jean stooped to put down the foot rests and with a brisk ‘Shouldn’t you be inside’ to the men, she pushed Alice towards the open door.

Ann’s mother, the youngest of the three witches, put a hand under Audrey’s elbow and together they headed to the function room, allowing Peter a few moments alone with his sons.

‘Okay, Stephen?’

Beads of sweat had begun to collect on his forehead, loose curls breaking free of whatever he’d used to control his mid-brown hair.

‘Here.’ Peter handed Stephen a clean white handkerchief and, with a nod to Julian, said, ‘Better get him inside.’

Julian slapped his brother on the back, directing him towards the waiting photographer. ‘Come on, and for Christ’s sake try not to throw up in the middle of the service.’

Peter didn’t catch Stephen’s reply. He shook his head as he watched them cross the yard. Stephen, like his mother in temperament as well as looks, enjoyed a career denied her by poor health. Enjoyed? Yes, Peter mused, once the agony of waiting to go on stage, or a first read through was over. Susan would have revelled in today’s celebration. Stephen was always her favourite – no, that was unfair – but they did enjoy a special relationship.

Peter caught a breath of perfume – Susan’s perfume, almost as if she were there. Suddenly overcome he put out a hand to steady himself and waited for the sensation to pass. ‘Must be the heat.’ Was it more than fifty years since they first met...?

***

Peter swung a canvas holdall onto his shoulder and sauntered home through the park. Cricket practice had gone well, and grinning with satisfaction, he relived the ball which had swerved, clipped the offside stump and left Billy Garratt wafting his bat at thin air.

He looked up to see Jean skipping along the gravel path towards him. At thirteen, Peter still enjoyed cricket with his twin sister; she wasn’t afraid of a hard ball and could play as well as any boy – and he missed her whilst away at school. ‘Want a game?’ he asked, eager to show off his blossoming skills.

‘Not now. Aunt Alice has tea ready.’ She slipped an arm through his. ‘Peter, were you really hit in the face with the ball during the last match at school?’

Peter turned his head to hide a purple bruise. ‘Do you know what bastard means?’

Jean nodded.

‘There are a couple of boys who won’t be using that word again in a hurry.’

‘My friend Susan had some bother at school,’ she told him. ‘At the open day there was some trouble with her father. Nothing much, but you know how it is, there’s always someone who—’

‘Yes, I know how it is.’

‘Good.’ Jean squeezed his arm. ‘She’s coming to stay for the holidays. I knew you’d understand.’

‘The whole of the school holidays?’

‘She can’t go home – her father’s ill. Besides—’ Jean folded her arms and pouted, a lock of dark curly hair tumbling across her forehead. ‘Now you’re helping Uncle Frank at the office and joined the cricket club you won’t have time for me.’

‘What’s the matter with her father? Why isn’t she at home, helping to look after him?’

‘He’s ... just ill,’ Jean said evasively.

*

In the front bedroom of a large Victorian terrace, Peter emptied the holdall, propped his cricket bat in a corner and neatly stacked pads and gloves. He bundled grass-stained whites into a laundry basket. His room, for a boy his age, was neat, the blankets on the iron-framed bed pulled tight. It had been a hard lesson: Uncle Frank’s military training filtered through to random room inspections.

Peter went to the bathroom. The iron bath on its ball and claw feet stood firmly on a cold lino floor. He stripped off his vest and was about to run water into the wash basin when his sister’s voice drifted from the landing.

‘This is my room. Hope you don’t mind sharing. That’s my brother’s room over there. And this is the bath—’

Peter put a shoulder to the door and quickly turned the key.

*

When Peter came down to dinner, Jean and Susan were seated at the dining table.

Jean smiled at him before turning to Susan. ‘This is my brother, Peter.’

‘How do you do?’ he greeted formally.

‘Hello.’ Susan glanced at him, before looking down shyly.

With smocking gathered across the bodice of her dress and fair hair tightly plaited, she appeared much younger than Jean.

Peter remained standing until his uncle entered. Close cropped hair, moustache neatly trimmed, Frank exuded authority. He and Peter took their seats only when Alice was seated.

Taking her lead from Jean, Susan bowed her head with the others.

Peter didn’t close his eyes, mechanically reciting, ‘Amen’ at the end of the pre-meal ritual.

Jean scraped the last drop of custard from a pudding bowl, sat back and looked with sympathy at Susan miserably pushing treacle sponge around her dish. Catching her aunt’s eye Jean glanced meaningfully at her friend.

Alice gathered up the dishes and, defying a hard stare from her husband, said, ‘Why don’t you take Susan into the sitting room, show her your new games compendium?’

Jean pushed back her chair. ‘Mrs. Atkins has a new TV. May we go and watch? She said we could.’

‘Well—’ Alice looked at Frank.

‘Uncle Frank?’ Jean smiled sweetly. ‘Please can we go next door?’

‘Just for an hour, Jeanie’

The girls giggled and scampered from the room, all prepubescent knees and elbows.

‘Aren’t you going with them, Peter?’ Alice asked.

‘No. May I leave the table?’

‘Yes, dear, but take the dishes through to the kitchen.’

‘That’s Jean’s job. I fetched in the coal.’

‘Just today, whilst Jean’s friend settles in.’

‘But it’s almost time for—’

Frank cleared his throat – a familiar warning.

Peter carried the dishes into the kitchen, setting them down on the wooden draining board with a crash.

Alice leaned over her nephew’s shoulder. ‘I’ve switched the wireless on, so by the time you’ve put the other things in the pantry, the set will have warmed up.’

Peter shoved condiments onto a shelf in the pantry before throwing himself into a big armchair in the sitting room just in time to hear Journey into Space.

Frank settled in a matching chair and balanced a silver cigarette case and lighter on the arm before noisily shaking out a newspaper.

Peter scowled and leaned closer to the radio.

After fifteen minutes totally divorced from this world, Peter switched off the wireless and opened his sister’s games compendium. He lined up the chess pieces on the board and began pushing them around aimlessly.

Frank folded the newspaper. ‘Set them up properly, Peter. Let’s see if you’ve improved.’

Peter rested the board on a low table and settled to the game, the silence of concentration broken occasionally by Frank wheezily blowing cigarette smoke. Conscious of Frank’s scrutiny, Peter concentrated hard but after forty-five minutes was reluctantly forced to concede.

‘That was much better.’

Peter smiled at the unaccustomed praise, but certain he could do better, asked, ‘Can we have another game?’

‘Maybe tomorrow.’ Frank helped fit the pieces in the wooden box.

The girls tumbled in from the hallway, Jean immediately wheedling her way under Frank’s newspaper to sit on his knee.

‘Hello, my Jeanie with the dark brown hair.’

‘Uncle Frank, can we have a television?’

‘No, Jeanie. But you can have a goldfish in a bowl if you like.’

‘Oh, Uncle Frank, p-l-e-a-s-e.’

‘Come in, Susan,’ Aunt Alice urged as she joined them from the kitchen. ‘Make yourself at home.’

‘Please, Uncle Frank,’ Jean persisted. ‘Why can’t we?’

‘No, Jean.’

Jean’s lips puckered in a half-hidden pout, but she slipped from his knee to sit on the floor. ‘What would you like to play, Susan, Ludo or Snakes and Ladders?’

Peter caught his sister’s glance and secret smile; the seed sown, he guessed she’d eventually get her own way.

At nine o’clock, Frank shifted in the armchair and shot meaningful glances across the room to his wife.

Alice put down her knitting. ‘Bedtime, children.’

‘Just another half hour,’ Jean pleaded. She turned to Frank. ‘Please, Uncle Frank. We’ll be very quiet.’

‘Ten minutes, Jeanie,’ Frank responded, ‘to give Peter time to use the bathroom.’

‘What?’ Peter, having joined in the girls’ game, jumped to his feet, his sudden movement upsetting the board. Held in Frank’s stern glare, he still managed to challenge, ‘But that’s not—’

‘Peter.’ Leaning forward, Frank lowered his voice. ‘Argue and I’ll put my belt across your backside.’

Peter met his uncle’s gaze – just for a moment – but very aware Frank did not make idle threats, lowered his eyes and left the room.

Subdued, Jean quietly collected the playing pieces and returned them to the box, whilst Susan, obviously embarrassed at being the indirect cause of the incident, blinked back tears.

Their concessionary ten minutes up, Jean leaned over her uncle and kissed his cheek. ‘Goodnight, Uncle Frank.’

‘Goodnight, my Jeanie with the dark brown hair.’

Jean kissed her aunt, took Susan’s hand and led her from the room.

Frank cleared his throat and shuffled the pages of the newspaper. ‘I’ll make enquiries about a television set. Of course, we’d need an aerial.’

‘Jeanie with the dark brown hair.’ Alice scoffed at Frank’s corruption of the popular song. ‘You spoil her, Frank.’

*

Peter fetched coal from the yard allowing the scuttle to clang in the hearth before thundering upstairs to collect his cricket kit.

‘Don’t make such a noise,’ Alice complained on his return to the kitchen. ‘The girls are still asleep.’

‘They made plenty of noise last night when I was trying to sleep,’ Peter retorted, still smarting from the incident the previous evening.

‘They’re excited. They’ll calm down after a couple of days.’ Alice handed Peter a pack of sandwiches. ‘Don’t be late home, steak and kidney pudding for tea.’

*

With afternoon sunshine warm on his face, Peter sauntered home through the park. Preoccupied with thoughts of steak and kidney pudding he didn’t hear the approach of two bicycles from behind.

Peter leapt aside as Jean skidded to a halt beside him, Susan almost crashing into her.

‘I borrowed your bike,’ Jean panted. ‘I knew you wouldn’t mind.’ In her tousled hair a halo of threaded daisies had slipped over one eye, her dress tucked up around her thighs.

Peter glanced at Susan who was riding Jean’s bike. Her eyes shone from exertion, fair hair, released from its restricting plaits, flowed on to her shoulders. An alien emotion stirring in Peter’s breast, unrecognised as jealousy of his sister’s new companion, he snapped, ‘You’ll catch it if the keeper sees you cycling in the park.’

Contemptuously ignoring the warning, Jean led Susan on another circuit until they again caught up with her brother. Propping his bike against a tree, she pulled at his holdall. ‘Let’s have a game with your new cricket bat. Come on, Susan, you can go first.’

To please her, Peter strode out a pitch’s length.

Susan, not fully conversant with the rules, moved at Jean’s insistence to stand before a metal litter bin utilised as makeshift stumps. She struggled to hold the heavy bat, letting go and giving a little squeal as the hard ball, slow bowled by Peter, landed at her feet.

‘You did that on purpose.’ Jean defended her friend.

‘I’m bowling as slowly as I can,’ Peter protested, failing to disguise his disgust.

‘Let me have a go.’ Jean took the bat and sent Susan to field at a safe distance.

Peter quickened his pace. Jean swung the bat, but a smidgen of anger had seeped into Peter’s arm, and a last second tweak of his fingers spun the ball. It bounced awkwardly.

‘Ouch, you pig!’ Jean sank to the ground grasping an ankle.

Peter’s momentary satisfaction overtaken by concern, he ran to her, pulled down her sock and massaged her ankle.

Jean scrabbled to her feet, raining blows on Peter’s back. He pushed her; the ankle gave way and she fell, landing beside the bat. Grabbing the handle, she swung it at Peter’s head. The bat whizzed past his nose.

Catching the handle, he wrestled it from his sister’s hand. For years, their strength had been equal, but now Peter was taller and stronger.

‘You pig,’ she flustered. ‘You—’ she used the only swear word she knew, ‘bastard.’

Peter slapped her face.

Shock brought tears.

Peter’s horror mirrored in his eyes. ‘Jean ... I’m sorry.’

‘Get away,’ she yelled. ‘I’m going to tell Uncle Frank.’ She stumbled towards Susan waiting near the bikes.

‘Tell him, I don’t care,’ Peter retaliated. ‘I’ll tell him you stole my bike.’

Flushed to the roots of her dark curly hair, Jean threw down Peter’s bike, allowing it to crash on the gravel path and wheeling her own, limped towards the gates.

Susan, who had watched in disbelief, scuttled after her.

Peter stared after them. He’d never before fought with his sister. They’d argued and pushed each other, but never caused real hurt. Jean was his best friend, his protector when Uncle Frank was angry. Righting his bike, he rested the holdall on the saddle, pushed it out of the park and along the road towards home. ‘It’s all that girl’s fault.’

CHAPTER 2

––––––––

That girl had blossomed into a lovely young woman.

Peter pushed the vision away. Not now, my sweet Susan. He crossed the courtyard and took the stairs to the second floor two at a time. A little out of breath he took a moment to wipe his brow with a spare handkerchief before rapping on the door of the suite.

‘Is anything wrong?’ Fiona asked when she opened the door.

‘Just making sure the bride is traditionally late,’ he covered.

A small boy in smart shorts and frilled shirt the same shade of coral as Fiona’s dress, rushed into his arms. ‘Look at me, Grandad.’ Without waiting for a reply, Nathan pointed. ‘Aunty Ann looks like a princess.’

‘So she does.’ Framed in the doorway of an inner room, bright sunlight filtering around closed curtains, Ann seemed to glow.

‘Emily,’ Fiona called to a girl of ten, whose coral dress was gathered at the waist and had little puff sleeves. Emily held the hand of another boy, Matthew, Fiona and Julian’s son.

Fiona handed Ann a bouquet of coral roses, picked up her own posy and ushered bridesmaid and page boys out of the door.

Alone with Peter, Ann kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you for giving me away.’

‘It’s not often a man has the opportunity to give a girl away and receive her into his family.’

‘How’s Stephen?’

Peter placed Ann’s hand in the crook of his arm. ‘He’ll be fine when the curtain goes up.’ Fondly patting her wrist, he led her down the stairs into the sunlit courtyard. ‘Are you ready, Princess?’

*

The photographer ushered them into shade beneath a canopy protecting the entrance to the function room. Inside, Peter glimpsed heads moving in quiet conversation, Stephen and Julian glancing anxiously down the aisle. A chair had been removed from the end of the second row, Aunt Alice’s wheelchair protruding slightly into the walkway, her sister, Audrey, Peter’s mother, discovered six years ago, by her side. What scorn, Peter mused, had Audrey endured: an unwed mother of twins in the 1940s, gossip and condemnation unbearable; I can almost forgive her for abandoning her babies.

The photographer fussed and clicked until Peter’s icy glare forced him to retreat, allowing them to enter the hall.

*

A whisper rippled from the door to the dais like a breeze through corn. ‘She’s here.’

A quartet began playing an arrangement of Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Trumpets.

‘Told you not to worry?’ Julian grinned.

‘I wasn’t,’ Stephen lied. ‘But it’s not like Dad to be late.’ He wondered when it would be appropriate to turn and look down the aisle but could contain himself no longer.

Sunlight streamed through the open door and blinded him, until, as if out of the sun itself, twin silhouettes appeared, faces coming into focus as they stepped into the room. Ann smiling shyly, Peter as proud as if she were his daughter.

Tears blurred Stephen’s view. He’d waited a long time, Ann having said yes only eight weeks ago to a question he’d asked six years earlier. ‘Something Nathan said,’ Ann explained when Stephen asked, ‘Why now?’

When his vision cleared, Ann was standing by his side.

*

‘Is Peter getting married?’ Alice whispered from under her hat.

Audrey stooped over the wheelchair. ‘No. Stephen’s marrying Ann. Ann’s father died some years ago, so Peter’s giving her away.’

She thinks I’m daft, Alice fretted. They all think I’m senile, but I can remember when I was a girl as if it were yesterday. Audrey’s not so bright. She wasn’t so clever sixty-five years ago, or is it sixty-six now? Oh, Frank, she sighed. You were another one too clever for your boots; I wonder what was going through your mind back then...

***

Alice sat primly in the corner of a Chesterfield settee. She adjusted her skirt, crossed her ankles and watched Frank run thumb and forefinger over his neatly trimmed moustache. At twenty-eight, Frank was nine years her senior, a captain in the army. A career soldier, he’d joined in 1934 to get away from the farm; now, with war looming, this might be his last chance to visit his family – and he’d asked Alice to marry him, now, before he went away.

Smart uniform, buttons and shoes polished to perfection, he stood with his back to the slate fireplace in the sitting room of Merion Farm. Feet slightly apart, his rigid, six-foot frame rose on the balls of his feet before sinking back on his heels, a satisfied smile on his hard, handsome face.

The sitting room door burst open, two adolescents tumbling into the room in a tangle of arms and legs.

‘Audrey,’ Alice hissed at her sister.

Frank cleared his throat and frowned at his younger brother.

Audrey suppressed a giggle and pulling wisps of straw from her companion’s mop of unruly hair, admonished, ‘Come along, Gordon, stand to attention.’

Gordon slapped the heels of Wellington boots together, his brown corduroy trousers hanging loosely from frayed braces over a check shirt. His ruddy cheeks expanded until, no longer able to contain his laughter, he let it burst in a violent spray.

Gordon shrank under Frank’s withering glare.

Audrey threw herself into an easy chair, flared cycling shorts revealing tanned, shapely legs. No longer a gangly school girl, her complexion glowed with vitality. Curly dark hair – not tight or frizzy but coiled loose, rich with chestnut highlights, emphasised her precocious good looks.

Alice noticed Frank’s eyes widen, the tip of his tongue appearing briefly between his lips. ‘For goodness’ sake, Audrey,’ she admonished, smoothing a hand over her own dark shoulder-length hair; parted at the side, it merely fell in waves despite hours fastened in curling pins.

Audrey scrambled to her feet, took Gordon’s hand and led him towards the door. ‘Let’s see if the hens have laid any eggs.’

Alice demurely stared at her hands folded on her lap. Glancing up, she caught Frank watching them leave, his gaze lingering on Audrey’s slender ankles encased in little white socks. Once more he stroked his moustache and cleared his throat. Alice waited until he turned his attention to her hoping her smile carried the message, ‘If you are going to marry, Frank Bryce, then you need someone who knows how to behave. You told me you wanted someone respectable – ME.’

CHAPTER 3

‘Perhaps it was me who wasn’t so clever.’

‘What’s that, Alice?’ Audrey leaned over the chair.

‘Shh,’ Jean, immediately behind, hissed. ‘The registrar’s saying some opening words.’

Shushed by my own daughter, Audrey mused. When did she get so bossy? Audrey’s throat constricted, as it did so often when she thought of her babies. How is it possible to make up more than sixty years...?

***

‘Twins,’ Mae Llewellyn spat in disgust. ‘As if things weren’t bad enough, you had twins. What happened to the arrangements for adoption?’

‘I want to keep them, Mother. I can work.’

Mae, still dressed in stark mourning after almost six years of widowhood, threw up her hands. ‘And I suppose you expect me to look after them.’

‘I have some money.’

‘Who from? The father of these two?’

Months of being badgered and browbeaten had not persuaded Audrey to reveal the identity of the father, and she had no intention of doing so now. ‘Please, Mother. I want to keep my babies.’

Mae Llewellyn lifted the boy who had begun to cry. ‘That Gordon Bryce has a lot to answer for.’

‘Mother!’

‘He may not be the father of your children, but if he’d married you, instead of Bethan Jones—’

‘I didn’t want to marry him. We were friends.’

‘So you keep saying, but something turned you into—’ Mae floundered.

Audrey guessed the word her mother was unwilling to use, the same word bandied about in the village. ‘Lots of girls went out with soldiers from the camp,’ she said in defence.

‘But you had to get pregnant. Where is he now, this soldier of yours?’

Audrey swiftly turned her attention to the baby girl whose tiny fists flailed. It was best her mother think there was a soldier, now posted abroad, perhaps even killed, unaware he was the father of twins...

***

‘Dear Mother,’ Audrey murmured. ‘We could have managed if only you hadn’t— In the village they said it was my fault, that you died of shame, but maybe looking after two babies whilst I worked was too much.

Audrey gazed fondly at the back of Peter’s head. A father and grandfather himself, they’d never make up the lost years. She glanced sideways at her sister whose hat had drooped slightly and wondered if Alice was asleep.

*

I bet she thinks I’m asleep. Alice raised her head with a jerk in time to see Peter lift Ann’s hand and pass it to Stephen before taking a seat in the front row.

Frank and I did what we considered best for the children. Over the years, Alice had come to believe the oft-used statement, but since being reconciled with Audrey, it troubled her. There had been ill-feeling, but we thought only of the children, of Peter and Jean. Didn’t we? A stirring of emotion, long buried, niggled at Alice’s heart. I did my best to help her. I really did, though when Frank came home on leave, I anticipated his disapproval...

***

‘Since Mother died, Audrey has no one to help her.’ Alice paced the length of the kitchen at Merion Farm. ‘She needs to work to feed herself and the children.’

Frank took out his cigarette case, turning it over in one hand as he watched the twins sleeping, one each end of a large, iron-barred cot, wedged into a corner of the room. Kenneth, the child of his brother Gordon and sister-in-law Bethan, crawled about their feet.

A messenger arrived at the farmhouse door.

Councillor Elwyn Jones, a small, wiry man, removed his bike clips and hat before dusting himself down and launching into a prepared speech. ‘To show our appreciation of your acts of bravery, we would like you and your wife to be guests of honour at a ball to be held at the village hall.’

Frank cleared his throat, habitually smoothing his moustache. ‘That’s very kind of you, Elwyn, but I don’t think—’

‘But you must, Frank,’ Councillor Jones insisted. ‘It’s not everyone who’s awarded the Military Cross ... and besides there’s a band coming from Llandudno, special like.’

‘Well, in that case,’ Frank said with a wry smile. ‘I don’t see how I can refuse.’

As he caught sight of the toddlers asleep in the cot the councillor’s smile slowly disappeared and, with duty done, he proffered a curt nod to Alice and left. He pushed his bike to the farm gate before mounting and wobbling his way down the hill.

Aware Frank bore the humiliation of his sister-in-law’s illegitimate children with a resigned dignity, Alice silently thanked him for his forbearance. She adjusted a blanket spread in a pushchair. ‘I must take the children back to Audrey.’ Alice wondered how Audrey had afforded the extra wide carriage which must have been ordered specially from a big store. Perhaps, the father of the children – but on that subject Audrey kept her counsel.

*

Alice struggled down the hill with the pushchair. Holes and boulders caused springs to creak and groan, pillows cushioning the children from the worst jolts.

She waved to Audrey on the path below who, after a long day at the factory, greeted her sister wearily.

Audrey crooned, ‘Hello, my babies. Have you been good children?’

Alice told her sister about the ball. ‘The entire village is invited.’

‘Really?’

‘I’m sorry Audrey ... I didn’t think ...’

‘Don’t worry, Alice. I wouldn’t go, even if I were invited.’

Audrey continued to a terraced house along the road, Alice, to the post box on the corner. Alice noticed Mrs. Jenkins and her daughter. Taking her daughter’s hand, and with no effort to disguise her actions, Mrs. Jenkins put her nose in the air and crossed the road.

‘Alice,’ a voice hailed from the nearby Post Office. Mary waved an envelope. ‘This came for Frank— I mean Captain Bryce. I was going to send Hugh up to the farm with it, but as you’re here ...’

Alice took the letter. Though not official, it was obviously from a military source.

*

Frank paced the parlour whilst reading, halting in mid-stride to exclaim, ‘Christ.’

‘Bad news?’ Alice asked tentatively.

‘Old Nigel FitzGilbert’s bought it.’

Alice raised a hand, intending to place it sympathetically on her husband’s arm; she hesitated at his cold look and withdrew to the kitchen. Experience had taught her to leave him alone.

She’d met Nigel a couple of years ago, when she and Frank lived in London. Frank and Nigel gambled with each other – the fate of Frank’s promised half of the farm once in danger – but on his last leave he’d brought home a prize of a slim, leather box. Alice gasped in wonder at the contents before slamming it closed. ‘I can’t accept these. They must be a family heirloom. You must take them back.’

‘Serves old Nige right. He should know to call it a day when the cards are running against him.’

‘No,’ Alice insisted. ‘When would I ever wear such jewels? You must take them back.’

*

In their bedroom, under the eaves in the farmhouse, Alice searched through an old oak chest. She turned to Frank as he entered. ‘Where did you put the jewellery? It must be returned to Nigel’s family immediately.’

‘What?’

‘The box with the ruby necklace and other things. What did you do with it?’

He seemed distracted. ‘I put it somewhere safe.’

‘You’ll go to see his family of course,’ Alice insisted. ‘I’ll parcel them up for you to take, they’re much too valuable to send by post. Where did you put them, Frank?’

‘They’re safe enough. Don’t fuss, woman. I’ll attend to it.’

He was agitated, fiddling with his silver cigarette case before taking out a Senior Service, tapping it on the case. Something more, Alice guessed, than the sadness and anger he surely felt at the loss of a friend and comrade.

‘Frank—’ she tried to touch his arm.

‘DON’T FUSS.’ He shrugged her off with a shove so violent she fell, banging her head on the iron bedstead.

Alice felt him lift her, place her on the bed, her head swimming.

‘Sorry, m’dear. Just rest a while, I must go out.’

‘Frank,’ she called through the haze. ‘Where are you going? It’s late.’

The bedroom door closed. A moment later, Alice heard the splutter and growl of an old Triumph motorcycle Frank kept in an outbuilding. The roar crescendoed below the bedroom window, diminishing as he left the yard to descend the rough track towards the village.

CHAPTER 4

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‘I promise to love and cherish you, comfort and care for you, honour and protect you throughout our lives together, and this is my commitment to you.’ Stephen’s voice rang firm and clear around the room.

‘Does that mean for better or worse?’ Alice muttered. ‘It was certainly worse for me from that time. How much worse for my dear sister? But I didn’t know then—’ Alice fidgeted in the wheelchair. ‘Audrey deserved everything she had coming to her.’

‘Alice,’ Audrey whispered, ‘sit still and be quiet or I’ll ask Jean to take you out.’

The official invited the assembly to sit during the signing of the register. Jean and Peter made their way to a table decorated with roses the same shade as those Ann carried.

*

Sitting at the table, Ann took a pen from the registrar – let it hover above the open book. She’d signed a similar contract before, made similar promises – signed to make it and signed to break it – neither signed lightly.

It wasn’t me who first broke the promises. I was neither loved nor cherished – merely owned and derided.

The registrar pointed to a place on the page.

Stephen’s hand rested warm on her shoulder. Ann signed the page.

*

Audrey strained to see Peter and Jean waiting their turn to sign as witnesses. ‘I hardly remember their father,’ she murmured under cover of the movement of the assembly taking their seats. ‘We were so young and innocent. No