The Willow Pool. Elizabeth Elgin
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‘And will you like it here?’
‘You bet I will!’
She would be stoppin’ till they threw her out or, come August, the Government told her to find war work. And she was moving on nowhere without a fight!
‘Mind if I stay and talk? I’ve been writing to Davie, and I always feel so lonely afterwards. Are you very tired, Meg?’
‘No. I’m all keyed up, ’s a matter of fact. Just can’t get over my luck, if you want to know. Been telling myself I’ll wake up in L-Lyra Street, and find it’s all been a dream. Let’s sit on the bed and talk?’
She closed the door; her door! It was giddy-making. Then she carefully folded back the valanced bedspread, kicked off her slippers and offered a pillow to Polly.
‘What’s them flowers called on the bedspread and curtains? They’re ever so bonny. You’ll have to teach me the names of flowers.’
‘Well, those particular ones are delphiniums. They once grew in the garden of the brick house – all shades of blue – but they’ve been overgrown. Potter says it’s going to take him for ever to lick it all into shape when he gets it back again; says Armitage ought to be allowed to take the reaper to the lawns. Says it’s the finest crop of hay he’s seen in a long time! Potter took it badly, losing the main garden, but like I pointed out to him, he had an undergardener then, and an apprentice. They were both called up into the Army, so he couldn’t have coped on his own.’
‘But you help in the kitchen garden? And feed the hens?’
‘And go to the farm for the milk. That’s the first thing I do, mornings. Then I wait for Mrs Potter and Davie’s letter.’
‘You spend your life waiting for letters, or writing them. How long since you saw your feller?’
‘Six weeks. He and Mark got a crafty forty-eight, as they call it – hours, I mean, not days!’
‘Your brother is a real good-looker, isn’t he?’ Meg called back a photograph she’d noticed in the drawing room of a soldier, a small smile on his lips and mischief in his eyes. ‘I’ll bet your Mark can get any girl he wants. Can he dance?’
‘Loves it. Davie, too. When he was last here we went to Preston to a dance, then hitched a lift back as far as Nether Barton. There was a moon, and we walked home the long way round – took us ages and ages.’ She sighed yearningly.
‘Mark wasn’t with you?’
‘No. He said he wasn’t playing gooseberry. He got into civvies as soon as he arrived and said he was going to have a lazy couple of days. Actually, he spent most of the time sawing logs and barrowing manure for Potter! D’you know, it’s lovely sitting here, chatting. Almost like having a sister!’
‘Mm. You’re a good bit younger than your brother, aren’t you?’
‘Four years. It took a bit of time to get me, I suppose. I’m adopted, actually.’
‘Adopted!’ Meg’s eyes opened wide. ‘B-but you don’t seem to mind about it.’
‘Why should I? I’ve known about it since I was old enough to be told. I actually remember when they told me – suppose it was such momentous news it stayed in my mind. Hand-picked, Mummy said I was. A little fair-haired girl.’
‘But aren’t you ever curious, Polly, about where you came from and who your mother is? And you are so like your brother it’s amazing!’
‘Mummy’s my mother. The one who had me is my other mother, but I don’t think about her – we-e-ll, hardly ever. They got me through an adoption society – hope it didn’t upset my natural mother too much, handing me over. A young girl who couldn’t keep me, I think it must have been. No one has ever told me.’
‘And don’t you wonder just a little bit who your father was?’ Meg demanded. ‘I’d want to know.’ By the heck, didn’t she just!
‘Why should I? As far as I’m concerned, the one I look on as my father died when I was little. I’m lucky, being adopted into all this, and I never forget it. After all, my other mother must have been unmarried, and you know what a rumpus that causes! Maybe she knew that the finger would have pointed at me too. Illegitimate babies always suffer, you know. I think that if ever I was to meet her, I’d tell her I was very happy, and thank her for being brave enough to give me up. It must have hurt her a lot.’
‘Oooh, Polly Kenworthy! You aren’t half cool about it. Doesn’t it bother you at all?’ Meg was still taken aback.
‘No. What bothers me is that my parents might have walked on to the next cot and decided on the baby in that one! Don’t you understand? I’m lucky being who I am and having a lovely family. Just think of it – I might never have met Davie. Now that would have been a tragedy! And I’ll tell you something, Meg. If ever I were in the same position – with Davie’s baby, I mean – I wouldn’t let anyone take it from me for adoption!’
‘And could you ever wonder if you might be pregnant?’ Imagine that happening to a Kenworthy, Meg thought wildly. ‘What I mean is – well, have you ever …?’
‘No. Have you?’
‘Heck, no! Mind, I’ve never wanted to, as a matter of fact.’
‘I have, Meg. Oh, we’ve done some pretty heavy petting and there have been times when I’ve thought, what the hell!, but either me or him have managed to count to ten in time!’
‘But what if it does happen? What’ll you do, then?’
‘Hope and pray and count! Oh heck, I’m hungry! Just to even think about me and Davie doing it always makes me want to eat. Shall we go downstairs for a glass of milk, and some bread and jam?’
‘Let’s! And shall we bring it back up here, eh?’
Laughing, they tiptoed to the kitchen.
It was a queer carry-on, Meg thought as she lay awake still, counting as the grandfather clock downstairs struck twice. Her and Polly eating jam and bread sitting crossed-legged on the bed; Polly telling her about the way it was, being in love and about being adopted. Funny, it hadn’t seemed to worry her, but she’d fallen on her feet, she admitted it! Maybe, if Ma had given her up for adoption, Meg frowned, she could have ended up at a place like this too. And even more peculiar was the fact that Polly could be so matter-of-fact about her natural father, though she’d had a long time to get used to being adopted. And who in her right mind would worry about an absent father when she’d ended up a Kenworthy? Meg sighed and turned over her pillow, closing her eyes, breathing deeply and slowly.
Her last thought, before sleep took her, was to wonder yet again which sneaky little sod had fathered her, then shoved off without a scrap of regret. But she would never know now the name of Father Unknown – and was it all that important when Polly was technically in the same boat, sort of. After all, a sneaky little sod must have fathered her too, yet it didn’t seem to bother her! So best she forget it and, like Polly, count her blessings!
Meg surveyed the drawing room she had just cleaned, sniffing the scent that was a mixing of beeswax polish and freshly picked flowers.
The drawing room had been in need of a good clean, come to think of it, but with two old ladies to fetch and carry for, and Polly working all the time she could spare in the kitchen garden, Mrs John had little time for cleaning and it would please her to see what the new home help had done to the white-walled, slate-floored, cosily-old room. Now mirrors and windows shone, woodwork gleamed. She had even polished the copper jugs before she’d crept into the forbidden garden of the brick house and gathered flowers with which to fill them. Smugly pleased with her work, she picked up the photograph of Mark Kenworthy, clucking with annoyance that any man that handsome should be heart-whole and fancy-free.
‘You like my brother, then?’ Polly smiled from the doorway. ‘And it’s drinkings-time in the