Chapter 3 #2
She frowned as she examined the envelope. It was her sister’s handwriting, but there was no military censor’s stamp; no service number on the back.
Had something happened? The last time she had spoken to Lilian had been three days after Christmas, as Lil prepared to return to her post in Greenwich.
Bobby had said goodbye at the bus stop by the Black Bull pub, Lilian in her navy-blue Wren’s uniform – perhaps very slightly snugger around the waist than it had been months earlier, but with little evidence otherwise of the predicament she was in.
Lil had written to Tony Scott, the baby’s father, the day after Boxing Day and told Bobby she would wait to hear from him before she made any decisions about the future.
‘You’ll come home though, won’t you?’ Bobby had said as she’d hugged her sister tight. ‘After you leave the Wrens, I mean. Here, to me and Dad.’
Lilian had smiled sadly. ‘If I’m still welcome once Dad finds out what I’ve done.’
‘He’ll come round.’
Lilian sighed. ‘I don’t know, Bob. He’ll be so disappointed in me.’
‘At first, perhaps, but he loves you, Lil.’
‘Well, I’m not going to rush to resign my place – not until I’ve heard from Tony. There’s still a couple of weeks before I’ll really start to show. More, if I keep my corsets laced tight. I’m going to need all the money I can get.’
That had been less than a week ago. Yet the letter Bobby was holding looked like a civilian letter, and the postmark on it was Leeds. Was Lil not still at her billet in Greenwich?
Bobby tore it open, hoping she wouldn’t find yet more worrying news inside. What she read there… she didn’t know whether to call it good news or not. But it was certainly news.
Dear Bobby,
I suppose the envelope this letter comes in must have given you a clue that things have taken a rather different path to the one I had envisaged.
I know nothing gets past my clever little sister.
I hope you have a cup of tea in your hand, or something stronger from Dad’s supplies, for you’re likely to need it when you read what I have to tell you.
Please don’t worry, however – I have good news. At least, it’s the best I could have hoped for, given the pickle I’ve managed to get myself into. But I’ll stop beating about the bush and put you out of your misery. It’s simply this: that Tony and I are to be married.
Are you still reading? Have you swooned with shock? I know you must think him a poor match. I confess I wish… but it doesn’t matter. The consequences of my actions have turned up to bite me on my bottom, and jolly well serve me right.
Bobby stared at the words on the page, if not quite swooning with shock then certainly knocked for six. Lilian, engaged to Tony Scott! Whatever news she had expected on opening her sister’s letter, it hadn’t been that.
Tony, Bobby’s former colleague from her days working for the Bradford Courier, had always been feckless, lazy and with an eye for a pretty girl.
The surprise Bobby had felt on learning he was to blame for her sister’s condition had been due to Lilian alone: that she could have been so foolish as to fall for Tony’s lines.
It had come as no shock to Bobby that her old friend would have been irresponsible enough to father her sister’s child.
But learning he was not only prepared to support the baby but actually to legitimise his child through marriage – now that was a shock.
Bobby knew she ought to feel relief, for Lilian’s sake and the baby’s, but all she felt as she read on was worry.
You’ll be dying for the full story, I imagine, so here it is.
You know I wrote to T with the news of what he’d done – or what we’d done, I ought to say, for I’m no less guilty.
I hadn’t expected much. All I asked was if he would be willing to advance me money to pay for a private nursing home where I could deliver the baby and give it away for adoption without anyone being the wiser.
Knowing he was out of work, even that seemed a forlorn hope.
The very day I got back to my digs, I found a letter waiting for me with an offer of marriage!
We spoke on the telephone that evening. He told me it isn’t only for the baby’s sake.
That he had long admired me, which I know to be true, and that he had fallen in love with me, which I know to be untrue but am willing to accept as a pleasant fiction to help me go through with this thing.
I know T is shiftless but I can’t believe he is truly bad.
He says he is going to try, really try, to be a better, more dependable man.
You know him better than me, for all that I’m carrying his child, so you will know how likely this resolution is to come true.
Still, it is the best outcome – I had so wanted to keep the baby, and for it to grow up happy and respectable with me as its mother.
Tony is offering me all of that, which I suppose is rather noble for a man of his habits. But oh, Bobby! I had so many dreams.
There was an illegible line here, the ink blotted where tears had fallen.
I’m sorry. I shouldn’t give in to emotion, when really it’s all worked out rather well.
I suppose it’s the baby – I certainly seem to cry at the drop of a hat these days.
Perhaps I can learn to love Tony, in time.
But I had wanted my life to turn out differently, Bob.
Sometimes I daydream about how things could be if I broke it off with Tony and you and I went somewhere together, found a little cottage and raised the baby just we two…
but I’m rambling, and you’re probably long ready for this bittersweet letter to be over.
In short, I spoke at once to the senior Wren officer to tell her I was to be married and wished to resign my place.
I was frank about why the wedding was a matter of urgency and she was a sport about it.
I’m not the first, I suppose, and surely won’t be the last. She issued me with a Para II and I found myself back on Civvy Street before you could say knife.
I’m now on my way home. I’ve scribbled this nonsense on the train, to drop into the postbox when I change at Leeds.
I suppose by the time you read it, I’ll be back in Bradford.
I’ve arranged to lodge with Clara for a fortnight, and Tony and I are intending to arrange a quick wedding at the registry.
Tony has the licence ready. Hardly Rhett and Scarlett, is it? But hey-ho and serve me right.
One of the Greenwich girls has a neat little parlour trick she used to bring out on beano nights.
She’s able to tell fortunes by laying out cards, just like the gypsy woman I dragged you to see once in Blackpool.
Before Christmas she told me I was to expect great joy in 1942, but also great sadness.
Do you think there can be anything in it? Or have I gone quite barmy?
As soon as I’m legally Mrs Scott, I’ll be dragging Tony to Silverdale to introduce him to Dad. Tin hat at the ready, young Bobby! I’ll see you very soon, and please, don’t fret.
All my best love,
Lilian