Chapter Fourteen
Adam solemnly surveyed the people gathered about the table as they sang happy birthday to him. He was clearly feeling a little overwhelmed at all the attention.
Peggy had made him a magnificent birthday cake in the shape of a car and the candle on it burnt brightly as Annie urged, ‘Blow the candle out, sweetheart.’
Adam took a deep breath and with the help of Monty, who was holding him, he managed to do it. But then he was tired of all the fuss and struggled to get down to play with his presents.
Peggy chuckled. ‘Where did that year go?’ she said to Levi. ‘Just look at him, he’ll be walking any day now.’
Adam was crawling across the floor at a rate of knots with a smile on his face as everyone looked on affectionately.
Mrs Taylor-Lloyd and her husband were there, and she spoilt the happy mood when she commented, ‘I still can’t see any likeness to Montgomery or Reginald when they were that age.
He must take after your side of the family, Annie.
Although you wouldn’t know what they looked like, would you?
Still, never mind, perhaps the next one will take after our side of the family.
Speaking of which, I expected another to be on the way by now.
We don’t want Adam to be an only child, do we? ’
Peggy glared at her but managed to bite her tongue. The woman never missed a chance to take a dig at Annie and there was nothing Peggy would have liked more than to slap her stupid face. But she wouldn’t, that would only make things worse.
Annie watched Adam, trying to ignore her mother-in-law.
But the fact was, she was right, because as Adam grew and developed his own little personality, he reminded her more and more of Alex.
His hair, admittedly, was as dark as hers, but it had a tendency to curl like Alex’s and his face was so like his father’s that sometimes it hurt her to look at him.
He was like a mini version of the man she had loved.
Glancing up, she saw Reggie smirking, so with burning cheeks, she quickly snatched up the cake and bore it away to the kitchen to slice, closely followed by Peggy.
‘Ooh, so ’elp me, one o’ these days I shall knock that bloody woman’s block off!’ Peggy hissed as she attacked the cake with a large knife. ‘She’s got a tongue on ’er like a viper!’
‘Just ignore her,’ Annie urged as they loaded the slices onto plates.
‘I try to.’ They each carried some plates through to the guests and Annie smiled as she saw Susan and Tim sitting close together on the sofa deep in conversation.
They were so immersed in each other that they might have been the only ones in the room.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if we weren’t ’earing weddin’ bells wi’ them two soon,’ Peggy whispered as she handed out the cake. ‘She’s been to meet his two little girls a few times now, an’ from what she told me they got on like a house on fire.’
‘Well, it’s high time she got some happiness.
’ Annie looked around at the rest of the guests.
Davey and Eve were there with their two children, and Ellie and her young man had come too.
She could still remember the day Levi’s departed wife had taken her and Ellie from the workhouse.
Ellie had been just a baby then, but Maggie hadn’t taken to her and so Peggy had become her mother and brought her up as her own.
And now here she was all grown up with a sweetheart.
‘It looks like we might have two weddings on the cards,’ Annie said with a smile.
Following her gaze Peggy nodded in agreement.
‘I reckon yer could be right. He’s the chauffeur to the folks she works for an’ a real nice chap from what I’ve seen of him.
Oh, an’ by the way, I bumped into Flo in the market the other day an’ she looked grand.
’ Flo was Maggie’s sister and had always been the black sheep of the family.
‘She’s in thick wi’ a butcher from up Stockingford way, by all accounts.
He’s a widower an’ she reckons he’s asked her to move in wi’ him.
He ain’t short of a bob or two, so if she takes ’im up on the offer an’ be’aves ’erself she’ll be set fer life. ’
‘Good luck to her.’ Annie smiled. Flo had been with quite a lot of men after her husband had run out on her some years before, but perhaps she was ready to settle down again now.
As Annie looked around, she was sad to think of the people who were absent.
Barney and Mercy had been unable to come as they were at the circus’s winter quarters, but they had sent Adam a card and said they hoped to see everyone in the spring.
Harry, and Charlie, Levi’s other sons, were also absent.
Charlie was still living in London and Annie missed him.
She was amused when she looked back now to remember the romantic feelings she’d had for him when she was younger – until she’d found out that he had a boyfriend, that was.
Sadly, his boyfriend had died during the war and, broken-hearted, Charlie had moved away to make a new life for himself away from the memories.
And from the letters they received, he seemed to be doing just that.
As for Harry, the youngest of Levi and Maggie’s boys had always had an eye for the girls and had been devastated to learn that the butcher’s daughter he had been walking out with was carrying his child.
He’d reluctantly married her, but their union hadn’t been a happy one and after the war, he’d stayed in France with a woman he’d met there.
Every now and again Levi would get a postcard from him, so at least they knew he was all right.
Still, Annie was pleased to have so many people present for Adam, although she couldn’t help but think of the parents she’d never met who had missed their grandson’s first birthday.
The longing to find them was like a dull ache that never went away, but despite trying to find the origins of her shawl and asking countless questions of anyone she thought might have known her mother around her birth, she was no closer to finding them.
As she got older, she was beginning to accept that she might never know where she’d come from.
Soon after the cake had been eaten, the guests began to leave and Monty took Adam off for a bath.
He had endless time and patience with their son and Annie knew how lucky she was.
Even so, she’d begun to get very restless and missed working in her shop.
The trouble was, there was no one to leave Adam with because he was into everything – Monty often joked that you needed eyes in the back of your head.
Peggy and Susan were at work in the shops each day and there was no one else she trusted enough to leave him with.
Later, as she was lying in bed, an idea formed in her mind and she put it to Monty the next morning at breakfast.
‘I was thinking . . .’ she began tentatively as she placed a bowl of porridge in front of him. ‘It might be a good idea to employ someone to live in and help about the house. Someone I could trust to leave Adam with so that I could go back to work.’
‘Oh yes, and who did you have in mind?’ Monty had suggested more than once that she should get someone in to help with the housework and she’d always flatly refused, saying she could manage everything herself.
‘Well . . . I got to thinking of when Maggie fetched me from the workhouse. Once the girls there are old enough, they find them a position and they’re sent out to work, so perhaps we could have a girl I could train.
But I wouldn’t want her purely as a maid, of course.
Whenever I was at home she could come and go as she pleased and we could treat her like a member of the family. What do you think?’
‘Hmm.’ Monty tapped his chin with his forefinger. ‘I dare say it could work,’ he said eventually. He’d hoped that Annie would choose not to go back to work. Financially there was no reason for her to, but she liked to be busy and was ambitious, so he didn’t want to hold her back.
‘So you’d be happy for me to go and see if anyone suitable might be available?’
He saw the excitement in her eyes and smiled. He could never refuse her anything. ‘Of course.’
Annie kissed his cheek and went off to pour the tea. There was no time like the present so as soon as Monty had gone to work, she would get Adam ready and set off.
It was mid-morning by the time she turned into the Bull Ring and the workhouse came into sight, and for a moment she paused and shuddered as memories of the years she’d spent there flooded back.
She’d heard that the housemistress and the housemaster who’d run it while she was there had retired some years ago and she hoped for the sake of the poor souls that resided there that their replacements were of a kindlier disposition.
She took a deep breath and knocked on the door. It was opened by a tall, middle-aged woman, who was as slim as a reed, but not unattractive.
‘Good morning, may I help you. I’m Mrs Latimer, the housemistress.’
‘Yes, actually I . . .’ Annie stumblingly told her why she’d come and the woman held the door open so that she could push the pram into the hall.
‘So, Mrs Taylor-Lloyd, I assume you would be looking at one of our older residents?’
‘Yes.’ Annie glanced around. It looked much as she remembered it.
‘Then do come into the office and I’ll have a look to see who might be suitable, although from what you’ve told me, one young woman instantly springs to mind.’
Annie lifted Adam from his pram and followed her into the office where the woman opened a large ledger and began to run her finger down a list of names.