‘Have – have you any idea where they’ve gone?’ Charlotte asked.
Again, the woman shook her head. ‘Nah, an’ if she’s still with that Arfer, then I don’t want to know. Tried to get my son involved with ’is black market racket, he did. I gave him a clip round the ear.’ She laughed and her whole face was suddenly younger and free of worry for a brief moment. ‘My son, I mean. Not Arfer, though for two pins I’d have given him a fourpenny one, an’ all.’
Charlotte held out the basket of food they’d brought. ‘We brought this for Jenny and her mother, but please, we’d like you to have it.’
‘That’s very kind of you, an’ I ain’t too proud to say “yes”. Not just now, I ain’t.’
‘Come,’ Charlotte said softly to Miles. ‘We’d better go.’
‘I’m sorry I can’t offer you a cup of tea. I would, but . . .’ The woman gestured towards her flattened house.
Miles roused himself. ‘Have you somewhere to go? I mean, you and your family could come to us if—’
‘Now that’s real generous of you, mister. I ’preciate that, I really do. But we’ll be all right. We’ll tough it out now. Can’t last much longer. ’Sides, I need to be here when my old man comes home on leave. An’ we’ve got a good shelter to go to. The Underground. We have a sing-song down there most nights. An’ to be honest wiv you, the bombing’s not been so bad just lately. Mebbe ol’ ’Itler’s realized he can’t beat us Londoners.’
On that note, they said goodbye and made their way back to the station.
‘Do you want to stay at Felix’s flat, Miles?’ Charlotte asked as they walked, clinging to each other for comfort and support.
‘No. It was good of him to offer it, but I just want to get home. If there’s a train, I want to get home. Oh Charlotte, where can she be? How can we find her?’
‘You look a little pale this morning, my dear,’ Felix said as they sat together working on the final stages of their two paintings. ‘Is the strain getting too much for you?’
It had been a week since they’d returned from London and since then, Miles had shut himself away in his study, hardly eating, hardly speaking and not sleeping well, either. He’d spent hours on the telephone and written countless letters to anyone who might be able to help them locate Jenny. Charlotte often woke in the night to find the place beside her in bed empty. When she crept downstairs, she would find him sitting at his desk, staring at one of the pictures Charlotte had painted of the little girl and which Miles had insisted should hang in his study.
‘Will we ever see her again?’ he asked repeatedly, but Charlotte was unable to give him a hopeful answer. All she could say was, ‘Perhaps we should be grateful they’d left that street. If not . . .’ She left the words unsaid, but even the thought that Jenny was still alive somewhere in the world didn’t seem to bring Miles any comfort. He wanted the little girl who’d become like the longed-for daughter here at the manor, safe and well with him. ‘I’ll never stop looking for her, Charlotte,’ he vowed. ‘Never.’
Nightly, as she said her prayers as she always had, Charlotte asked, ‘Please, Dear Lord, bring him comfort. He has borne so much sadness, please – if there’s any way – let me help him.’
Now, in answer to Felix’s question, Charlotte laid aside her brush and sighed. ‘Maybe. I’ve been feeling unwell for a few days, but please, don’t say anything to Miles, will you? I’m so worried about him. First, the wonderful news about Georgie, and then finding Jenny had gone and we can’t find out where she is. It’s too much of a see-saw of emotions for anyone to bear. Even for someone as strong as Miles. He’s just devastated. And, of course, poor Philip . . .’
‘My dear girl, Miles has a right to know if you’re feeling under the weather. He’d want you to see the doctor.’
‘I’m sure it’s nothing. I don’t want to cause him more worry.’
‘I know, I know,’ Felix said gently. ‘But you should look after yourself, too. Please, go and see the doctor. For me, eh? If it’s nothing, then you needn’t even tell Miles, but you should go.’
Charlotte smiled at him, trying to quell the queasiness in her stomach. ‘I will.’
‘Then I’ll make sure you do.’ He winked broadly at her. ‘We’ll take a little ride in the pony and trap tomorrow morning by way of the surgery in Ravensfleet.’
When she walked out of Dr Bennet’s surgery, Charlotte was in a daze.
Felix could not read the expression on her face. There was something, he could tell, but wisely he asked no questions. Whatever it was, Miles should be the first person she told. They drove home in unaccustomed silence. Even the ebullient Felix could think of nothing to say except the question uppermost in his mind. And that he could not ask.
When she climbed carefully down from the trap, she smiled her thanks and walked slowly up the steps into the house. Felix watched her go with a heavy heart. Sighing, he took the pony and trap round the side of the house to the stable yard, where he whiled away the time petting the horses and talking to the stable lads.
‘You know, I’ve never painted a horse. Perhaps I should try,’ he murmured, trying to keep his thoughts away from what was happening in Miles’s study at that very moment.
Charlotte opened the door to her husband’s study very quietly and, for a few moments, stood watching him seated at his desk. His head was bent over the papers he was reading, his brow creased in concentration. She was pleased to see that at least he was starting to take an interest in something again other than his letters about Jenny. But she wasn’t sure just how he would take her news.
Becoming aware of her presence he looked up and began to smile. But then his smile faded. He rose slowly.
‘What is it, my dear? Is something wrong? Is it Philip?’
He came swiftly round the end of the desk towards her, holding out his hands.
Charlotte shook her head and said huskily, ‘No, no. He was fine when I left.’
She closed the door quietly and then put her hands into his. She stood looking up at him, drinking in every detail of his face – the face that had become so very dear to her.
‘Left?’ Miles frowned. ‘I didn’t know you’d gone out. Where’ve you been?’
‘I – I’ve been into Ravensfleet to see Dr Bennet.’
‘Dr—? My dear, are you ill?’
Tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, but she was laughing. ‘No – no. I’m gloriously, wonderfully well. Oh Miles, I’m – we’re – going to have a baby!’
He stared at her, dumbstruck for a moment. Then he whispered hoarsely, ‘Pregnant? You’re – you’re pregnant?’
‘Yes – isn’t it wonderful?’
But it didn’t look as if he shared her joy. She felt his hands holding hers begin to tremble and he was biting down hard on his lower lip.
‘Aren’t you pleased? It’s what we’ve wanted.’ She paused and added uncertainly, ‘Isn’t it?’
It was certainly what she’d always wanted but now, watching the fleeting emotions on his face, she wasn’t so sure about Miles. ‘Yes – yes – of course it is, but—’
Her heart seemed to turn over in her breast. ‘But – what?’
He drew her into his arms and buried his face against her neck. ‘Oh, Charlotte – I’m so afraid. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you, my love.’
She nestled against him, revelling in his tender words, words and emotions she’d never dared to hope to hear from his lips. She understood why he was afraid for her. He’d lost Louisa through childbirth and he was fearful of it happening again.
‘I’ll be all right,’ she said softly. ‘I’m fit and healthy and strong.’
He drew back a little and traced the line of her cheek with a gentle finger. ‘But – but you’re too old to be having a baby.’
Charlotte chuckled and her eyes sparkled. ‘Evidently Mother Nature thinks otherwise.’
‘But it could be – dangerous.’
She hugged him. ‘Please don’t worry so. Don’t spoil it, Miles.’
‘That’s the last thing I want to do, but I’m afraid I can’t promise to stop worrying.’
She took his hand. ‘Let’s go and tell Philip – and Felix. He took me into Ravensfleet but of course I said nothing on the way home. The poor man was bursting to ask questions, I could see. But he didn’t.’
Miles began to smile. ‘That’s not like Felix.’
‘No.’ Charlotte laughed. ‘He showed remarkable restraint.’
They began to climb the stairs, hand in hand, but halfway up Charlotte stopped and turned to face Miles. ‘You do think we should tell Philip, don’t you? I mean, he – he won’t mind, will he?’
Miles reassured her. ‘Philip has changed from the resentful young man he was, though I’m sad that it has taken a war and the prospect of death to do it.’
They entered the room together to find him sitting up in bed reading, looking the best he had done since arriving home. He looked up and smiled. ‘What’s this? A state visit?’
‘You could say that,’ Miles said as they sat down on either side of the bed. ‘Charlotte has some news for you.’
‘The portraits are finished? When can I see them? How long will they take to dry enough to hang?’
‘They’re nearly ready, but drying thoroughly will take a while, though Felix thinks we can frame them and hang them, if we’re very careful.’
‘But that’s not what she wanted to tell you,’ Miles chipped in.
Philip turned enquiring eyes towards Charlotte, who blushed. ‘I – we’re going to have a baby.’
She held her breath whilst Philip stared at her and then, to her enormous relief, his face broke into a wide grin. ‘That’s the best possible news I’ve heard since we heard Georgie was alive. But there’s just one thing, Charlotte.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s got to be a girl!’
The three of them burst out laughing.
Over the next few weeks, Philip joked, ‘I’m hanging on until your baby’s born, Charlotte, and maybe even until old Georgie gives the enemy the slip and comes home.’
‘I do hope he won’t do anything silly.’
‘He might try to escape again – if you call that “silly”. Perhaps he’ll just turn up on the doorstep one morning.’ He chuckled at the thought.
Charlotte sighed. ‘I just want him to be safe. It’s all I wanted for all of you.’
‘I know, I know,’ he said softly. ‘If he’d just hang on a while longer, I don’t think the end will be long coming now.’
Charlotte glanced at him. She knew he was referring to the end of the war, but no doubt he was also thinking of his own end, too. Could he do as he wished and hang on until Georgie came home or until her child was born in six months’ time?
The weeks passed and to her infinite sadness, Charlotte began to see a steady decline in Philip’s condition. The doctor visited every other day and at Miles’s insistence, he kept an eye on Charlotte too.
‘She’s fit and healthy and remarkably strong,’ she heard Dr Bennet say as she showed the doctor into Miles’s study after his visit to Philip’s room and after having had a chat with her. ‘I wish I was as happy about all my mothers-to-be as I am about Charlotte. All that farm work when she was a young lass, I expect,’ he added dryly as Charlotte smiled and turned to leave the room. A newcomer to the district, he’d learned about Mrs Thornton’s early life at Buckthorn Farm.
She was pulling the door to, when she caught Miles’s words. ‘I wanted a word with you in private, Doctor. About Charlotte’s confinement.’
Outside the door, Charlotte bent closer, holding her breath and feeling guilty at eavesdropping, and yet . . .
‘I want you to know my feelings now, whilst I’m rational and not faced with – with an unbearable decision.’
‘I understand,’ she heard Dr Bennet’s calm tones. ‘If there should be complications, you mean?’ He’d heard that the cause of Miles’s first wife’s death had been childbirth and he could understand the man’s natural anxiety. Especially, given Charlotte’s age.
‘I want you to know that if there’s a choice to be made, then Charlotte’s life is to be saved. I – she means everything to me. Everything. I couldn’t bear to lose her.’
Charlotte almost gasped aloud and clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle the sound. She’d never thought to hear such words of love and devotion and sacrifice, yes sacrifice. For at their next words she knew for sure.
‘You’d forfeit the life of the child in favour of the mother?’
‘Yes, I would.’
Softly, the doctor asked, ‘Even if it’s a girl?’ He seemed to know everything and Charlotte realized that Dr Markham must have told the young doctor all about the patients he was taking on.
There was not the slightest hesitation before Miles replied firmly, ‘Even if it’s a girl.’
Her heart soared. Now she could believe that Miles loved her, truly loved her, as she’d longed for him to do.
‘Madam . . .’ Kitty’s face appeared round the door of the sitting room one November morning.
Charlotte laid aside the tiny white coat she was knitting, giving it one last, fond touch before she looked up with a smile to say, ‘Yes, Kitty, what is it?’
Before she had finished forming the question she could see from the girl’s face, that something was wrong.
‘It’s Mr Philip, ma’am. He – he’s asking for you – and the master.’