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Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"She's the best friend I ever had. And she's such a wise and sensible person. Has Papa told you about her?"

A little squirt of fear erupted in Hilda's innards. "Papa? What does he know of her? He was hardly ever home when she ... "

"Only what I told him. I thought he might have

told you, that's all." "Oh!" Her spoke of the forlorn nature of such a belief.

"You know Lawrence wants to marry her?" Hilda gave a start and struggled to sit upright in the bed. Kathleen pulled at her hand to make her stay down. "Don't worry. She won't accept him. She's turned him down scores of times."

"She's turned him down?"

"Yes. I think she's wrong, because she loves him too, you know, but she says it would never work. It wouldn't last."

"Well!" Suddenly Hilda felt so weak she was rather glad to be lying down. "But how do they meet? If

these proposals are so frequent." "She has rooms in Upper Street."

"Oh, has she indeed! Well, I suppose she can afford

them. They make a small fortune these stewardesses, you know. But do you mean she entertains Lawrence in these rooms? He actually pays calls on her?" "Don't worry. It's nothing like you imagine." "I'm surprised you even know about such things.

When I was your age "Oh, Mama!" "What?"

"Don't pretend you were so ignorant at my age." "At seventeen? Í most assuredly "Jolly nearly eighteen."

"Until the day I married your father, I knew nothing.' " "D'you think that was good?"

For a long time her mother was silent; when at last she spoke it was to an earlier point: "So, all that sort of thing has been going on behind our backs all these months and months. I do think you might have trusted me enough to tell me something of it."

"Why? You couldn't have stopped it. They're both earning their own keep and you know what your opinion of Emma was. Incidentally, you didn't answer my question. Why did you change your mind about her?"

Her mother's tone was so offhand, so dismissive, that Kathleen knew she was lying. The realization came with something of a shock. She knew parents told little fibs to their children - white lies to avoid all the unpleasant and seamy things in life. But not lies like this. "Oh," Hilda said with a yawn, "she told me I'd been unfair to dismiss her without even giving her a chance to explain which, on mature reflection, I saw to be true. So I gave her the chance there and then and, I'm ashamed to say, she showed me I had, indeed, been wrong all the way. Still, if I hadn't dismissed her, she wouldn't have got this rather splendid position on the Pride of Liverpool was a silver lining after all." After a pause she added, - so there "There's just one thing I forgot to ask her. Perhaps you know."

"What was that?"

"How did she manage to get a character? I must look it up if I remember when we get to Liverpool." Kathleen was silent a while and then said, "Let sleeping dogs lie."

"Perhaps you're right. I still can't get over Lawrence.

All these months! Treachery inside a family is so complicated, isn't it."

"Treachery?" Kathleen objected to the word. "Betrayal, then. You can't deny it was a kind of betrayal." She sighed and added, "But by no means the worst."

That settled the affair! Short of actually putting it into words, her mother could not make it plainer that she knew all about Papa and Teresa - or, rather, she didn't know all, but just enough to make it seem like a betrayal. Kathleen decided there'd never be a better moment to set her mother's mind at rest. She clasped her hand tighter yet and said, "If you think it's a betrayal, Mama, you've got completely the wrong end of the stick. I thought it was, too, but the moment I met her I saw it couldn't be. You'd know it, too, if you could only see her."

"See who?" Hilda gave a nervous little laugh. "I'm sorry, dear, but I assure you I have no idea what you're

Kathleen chuckled and shook her mother's hand. "Honestly! There's no need to pretend. I've met her. I know all about it." "Again I have to ask - met who?"

"Teresa! Jenny Bright's daughter. The girl who calls herself Mrs Morgan." Hilda froze.

Kathleen shook her hand even more urgently. "You think it's a betrayal, don't you. But it's not. Papa's shielding her pretending to be married to her because of the baby. But she's Jenny Bright's daughter, so she's the last person on earth Papa could

really marry, isn't she." Out of the silence Hilda asked, "How do you know all this?"

"Oh, it's too complicated to explain. But I told Papa that I thought what he'd done was so noble. laughed, just as you'd expect him to." and he

"How do you know about Jenny Bright?" her mother asked. "She died years before you were born."

"Oh," Kathleen said casually, "there's a picture of her in Aunt Daphne's album, or one of her albums." "Of course."Hilda came close to laughing, though with relief rather than any humour. "Why 'of course'?"

"Didn't she tell you? No, I'll bet she wouldn't. Jenny was intended for Brian Dowty. I mean, that was their parents' intentions. But Aunt Daphne had already set her cap at Brian so she persuaded your father to cut in, even though she knew he and I were more or less betrothed."

"But I thought she was your friend!"

"So did I, until then! It led to quite a long estrangement, I can tell you. But of course I learned to accept she didn't intend for your father to fall in love with Jenny Bright."

"But he did?"

She felt her mother nod - and then give a brief, silent laugh. "Betrayals, betrayals, all around I see." The word was much kindlier than "treachery." It had an almost festive ring, like the name of a party game. "Let's play Postman's Knock!" "No, I'm tired of that. Let's play Betrayals!" She went on repeating the word in her own mind while she tried to picture a discreet little hôtel in Maidstone

There was no difficulty picturing the man on the discreetly turned-down bed, though. And it wasn't Francis.