‘Last week was last week, Peter. This week we’re engaged to be married.’
Peter laughed again and walked over to her, putting his arms round her, resting his chin on the top of her dark head. ‘All right, sweetheart, I’ll . . .’
The opening of the door saw them shooting guiltily apart, Peter to hurry over to the table where the peas waited, still in their pods, for attention, Marianne to the stove with her pan of potatoes. Tess strolled into the room and gave Peter a distinctly knowing glance. But she’s only eight, she can’t know anything, not really, Peter found himself thinking. I expect she thinks . . . oh God, I’ve no idea at all what she thinks!
‘Am I tidy enough for luncheon, Daddy?’ Limpid blue eyes gazed up into his. ‘I’ve washed and put on another dress. Can I lay the table or something?’
Marianne put the heavy pan of potatoes down on the stove and turned to smile at the child. ‘You do look nice and spruce, dear! Would you lay the table? That would be very kind.’
Tess continued to look at her father and he saw the pink flush darken her face and read the message there. She had addressed him, not his friend, she was waiting for an answer from him. And he saw the justice of it, what was more. Nothing annoyed him more than to ask a child a question and get the answer from an adult. Besides, Marianne was a guest in this house whatever she might think, and if she didn’t make more effort there was no hope at all of a good relationship between her and Tess. And I made myself clear, Peter told himself. It’s a good relationship or goodbye Marianne, baby or no baby. So he spoke directly to Marianne this time, and did not bother to hide his annoyance.
‘Tess was speaking to me, Marianne. Kindly allow me to answer for myself.’
He saw the pink steal up in Marianne’s cheeks, saw her suddenly hang her head and begin to pull out the cutlery drawer in the table, fumbling with the knives and forks to cover her embarrassment.
‘I’m sorry, Peter, I’m sorry, Tess,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to interfere. I’m really sorry.’
She’s not much more than a child herself, Peter thought, horrified by his own cruelty. But then Tess went over to Marianne and took the assorted knives, forks and spoons from her grasp, beginning to lay them on the table as she did so.
‘It’s all right, Miss Dupré, it doesn’t matter,’ she said kindly. ‘It’s just that Daddy and I spend so much time together, with no one else, that I’ve got used to him giving all the orders.’ She looked straight at Marianne for a moment, then smiled her own particular sweet, three-cornered smile. ‘Shall we both lay the table, mademoiselle?’
‘Then that’s all right,’ Peter said heartily. He could have hugged them both, particularly Tess. Perhaps things were going to work out, after all. ‘Now Tess, Marianne’s going to have luncheon with us, and then I’m running her back to the city. Would you like to go down to the Throwers’ place for the afternoon? I’ll be back no later than four o’clock. Or you can come with me, of course.’
‘I’ll go and muck around with Jan, then,’ Tess said. ‘Or do you want to talk to me, Daddy?’
Peter was caught out. He floundered, not knowing quite what to say for the best. ‘Oh, well . . . I certainly do want . . . only if you’d rather play with Janet . . . naturally, I’ve masses to tell you . . . ask you . . .’
‘We’ve got all evening,’ Tess said, helping him out. ‘You take Mademoiselle home then, Daddy, and I’ll go and play with Jan. What’s for dinner tonight? D’you want me to start anything cooking?’
‘Oh, I thought . . . I thought we’d have fish and chips,’ Peter said wildly. ‘As – as a treat, you know.’
Tess finished laying the table and leaned across it to pat his hand. ‘That would be lovely,’ she said. ‘I think it’s time the water for the peas was put on to boil, though. And the chops had better go under the grill at the same time, don’t you think?’
Chastened, Peter agreed, and hastened out of the room to fetch the celebratory gingerbeer and the bottle of wine which he had meant to drink at dinner time. But fish and chips were celebration enough, he knew, without adding bought drinks.
The meal was a quiet one, though Peter tried to draw Tess out. But she answered in monosyllables and he suddenly realised that she had news to impart which she would save until they were alone, and stopped questioning her. Instead, he tried to chat naturally to Marianne, but all her earlier bounce and optimism seem to have disappeared and she was so clearly watching ever word she spoke that conversation of any sort was difficult to sustain.
It was a relief when the meal was over and Peter could pack Tess off to the Throwers, bundle Marianne into the car, and drive sedately along Deeping Lane, bound for Norwich and Clarence Road.
‘Phew,’ he said as he turned out of the lane on to the main road. ‘That was sticky! I’m sorry I snubbed you, love, but you’ve simply got to appreciate that as Tess said, she and I have been alone together for most of our lives. You must not try to change our relationship.’
‘I wasn’t,’ Marianne said tearfully. ‘I was trying to be sweet to her.’
‘No. You were trying to assert yourself. And it won’t do, my dear. That way breeds resentment, believe me.’
‘Then what must I do?’ Marianne asked, sounding sulky, now. She’s as changeable as the Norfolk weather, Peter thought despairingly as a cloud sent a shower of rain down on them. She can’t suddenly become sensible, motherly, it isn’t in her. This isn’t going to work, I should tell her right here and now.
He took a deep breath, then exhaled it in a long whistle. ‘Do? Treat Tess like a child, not a possible rival,’ he said, intentionally sharp this time. ‘Or I’m warning you, Man, the wedding’s off.’
‘You wouldn’t! I’ve already asked my landlady’s little girl to be a bridesmaid . . . and I want Tess to be one, too,’ Marianne said wildly, as though this was a clincher. ‘I thought they’d look rather nice in rose-pink taffeta.’
‘Marianne, you’re
pregnant,
for God’s sake! You don’t intend to wear white lace, do you?’
‘No, not white lace,’ Marianne said, and just as Peter was beginning to say, with relief, that he was glad of it, she added: ‘Ivory satin, actually.’
‘You can’t! People will feel cheated when they realise we had to marry. No, my dear, it’s a register office and a nice dark suit and a couple of witnesses, not ivory satin and a couple of rose-pink bridesmaids.’
‘But I want a nice wedding! I’ve dreamed about being a bride ever since I was a small child! Oh, Peter, don’t take that away from me!’
‘Don’t
whine,
Marianne,’ Peter said with cruel crispness. ‘You gave up your right to a white wedding the first time you slept with me. Or didn’t sleep, rather.’
‘That wasn’t my fault! How dare you pretend it was my fault – you seduced me, you know you did.’
‘I dare say I did, but . . .’ Peter broke off and steered the car into a convenient gateway, braked, and switched off the engine. He turned to Marianne. ‘Look, darling, what I’m trying to say is that people will forgive us for jumping the gun, but they won’t forgive us for making fools of them. Jokes about all our troubles being little ones, you wearing the white of purity, honeymoon gags . . . they just aren’t on when the bride and groom have already had the honeymoon . . . d’you see? I promise you that if we go away and get wed quietly you won’t have people saying things, even if they have added up on their fingers and realised that two and two make five.’
‘So not being married in white is . . . is a face-saver? Is that it?’
‘More or less. A white wedding still means something, here.’
‘Oh. Well, suppose we got married in France?’
‘Can’t do it. No time, not on the spot . . . Marianne, if you want to marry me then it’s a register office as soon as possible and no honeymoon, just a knuckling down to getting to know one another and making a home for the new baby and for Tess. Got it?’
She turned and stared up at him, the dark eyes calculating. He knew she was examining every word he had spoken, wondering whether she could twist things to suit herself or whether it might be best simply to take his words at face value and give up her white wedding. He was sorry for her obvious disappointment but could not wholly understand it. She must know that there would be talk, that when she gave birth a bare six months after a big wedding people would talk about her behind their hands. But the expressive dark eyes were full of love now, brimming over with it. She threw herself into his arms and banged her elbow on the steering wheel, spat a curse in French, then rubbed her arm ruefully, still smiling at him.
‘Darling Peter, you’re right, of course. People would be just as disapproving in France – worse, probably. Very well, it will be a small, quiet wedding and no honeymoon . . . well, perhaps just a few days, a week . . . and then down to work.’
‘No honeymoon.’
‘Oh, Peter . . . all right then, no honeymoon.’
Peter kissed her, then started the car. He drove carefully out of the gateway and continued along the road to Norwich.
Marianne sat quietly beside him in the car as it ate up the miles. Now and then she glanced at his profile, wondering whether to come clean or whether to keep her own counsel. If she admitted that the doctor had merely said it was possible that she was pregnant, that he could not be certain yet, would Peter let her have her big wedding, or would he call the whole thing off? She didn’t know, of course, but she had a horrid feeling that he might give a sigh of relief and say the wedding could wait. He would mean indefinitely, or for ever, though he wouldn’t admit to that, of course.
Besides, they had been making love all week without Peter disappearing to don his beastly little rubber things, which meant that she was almost certainly pregnant, that her half-truth had become the whole truth. She sincerely hoped it had! She was sure she could bluff her way round an eleven-month pregnancy somehow, but she dared not even imagine what would happen if she did not become pregnant at all.
She had planned for it, of course. If, in six weeks, she was still having her periods, she would stage a miscarriage. She would do it when Peter was at work, acquire some animal-blood from somewhere and chuck it around, take to her bed in great pain, call the doctor . . .
But she wouldn’t have to do any of those things because she must be pregnant by now, of course she must. She was being extremely careful, she didn’t run up and down stairs or eat deliciously indigestible food or jump off the bus which brought her home from work. And if by some horrible unfairness of fate she actually was not expecting a baby she would go to the doctor and tell him that her periods had stopped for three months and had suddenly started again and he would say it was wedding nerves and explain to Peter . . .
It isn’t fair, Marianne’s inside self said pathetically. No lovely white wedding if you are pregnant, and no end of trouble and unpleasantness if you aren’t. It seemed that whatever she did she was going to lose out.
But then she glanced at Peter’s strong, square hands on the wheel, with the fair hairs covering the backs of them, and gave a little wriggle. He was all she wanted. Damn the wedding, the baby, everything. Just let her have Peter and all the rest could go hang.
Bessie Thrower was washing up. Dinner had been a cheerful affair, but with an undertone of seriousness. The holiday had been prime, but now reality was staring them in the face again. Bessie and Reg never discussed their overriding problem – how to feed and clothe a dozen souls – but that was because discussion would not have helped. Instead, they simply got on with things, so now Reg finished his meal and scraped back his chair.
‘Goin’ to tell Mr Rope I’m ’vailable again,’ he said. ‘Shan’t be long. Bert, you an’ Ben might check over the boat. Luke, Matt, there’s weeds almost as high as the blummen runner beans out th’end, an’ I see a foo late raspberries could do wi’ pickin’.’
He went, followed by the older boys, and presently the others trickled away too, leaving Janet and the twins to clear the table and tidy round, whilst Ned fetched water and Bessie humped the big old kettle off the fire and filled the bowl for washing up.
‘I’ll dry, Mum,’ Janet had offered, but Bessie told her she’d do better to put the boys’ dirty clothing in to soak and then to unpack her stuff, and Janet had done that and then disappeared into the front room.
Bessie, alone in the kitchen, waited. She had heard the car drive away from the Delameres’ house and though not a nosy neighbour, she guessed that Tess would be in presently, fizzing like a dose of salts. Mrs Sutcliffe had had a word, so Bessie knew all about the little madam who’d stayed over several nights whilst Tess had been out of the road. She didn’t approve, but human nature being what it was, she could scarcely blame Mr Delamere for seeking a bit of companionship. Mrs Sutcliffe had said, almost reluctantly, that the girl seemed a little lady, not some trollop from the city, bein’ paid for her services, which was a good thing. Except that in Bessie’s experience, little ladies didn’t lie down for a feller one moment and then take theirselves conveniently out of his life when his daughter come home. Not them! The Frenchy would be after something, and Mr Delamere was a nice-lookin’ feller, with nice manners and a decent home. Good job, too . . . and only him and Tess. Mr Delamere, Bessie concluded, was a Catch, and from what she’d heard, Frenchies knew a Catch when they saw one.
So when Tess burst in through the back door, Bessie was not at all surprised, and Tess’s first words were no surprise, either.
‘Mrs Thrower, Mrs Thrower, there was a
lady
at our house when I got home, a French lady! What’s going on?’
‘How d’you mean, my woman?’ Bessie asked placidly, taking the big potato saucepan and beginning to scour its interior with a handful of sharp sand. ‘Why d’you think there’s anythin’ goin’ on?’
‘Because Daddy’s never asked anyone back before. And because they were
whispering,
I heard them. She scraped the spuds, too – that’s my job!’
‘You hate it,’ Bessie observed. ‘You said you’d rather peel ’em any day.’
‘Oh well, yes, but I don’t want some French person doing it in our house! And Daddy said I was back early, as though if I’d not been, I wouldn’t have seen the woman.’