A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [197]
All at once Fifi had to tell Dan her news. She felt just like all those leaves dancing around in the wind, too excited to stay still, let alone keep her secret for another five days.
She ran over to him, bending to scoop up a pile of leaves, and threw them all over him. He laughed as she ran away, and chased her towards the summer house. Catching hold of her and scooping her up into his arms, he said he was going to put her in the compost heap.
‘No, you can’t do that,’ she said, wriggling in his arms. ‘It isn’t good for pregnant women!’
‘You what!’ he exclaimed, tightening his arms around her.
‘Did you really say what I thought you said?’
Fifi giggled, because his dark eyes were wide with delight. ‘Yes, I did. Little Reynolds will be here at the end of June.’
He put her on the ground then, but wrapped his arms around her tightly, kissing her all over her face. ‘That’s the best news ever,’ he said. ‘But why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘I’ve only just found out for sure, and I was waiting for a special occasion. I meant to tell you next Friday.’
‘Every day with you is a special occasion,’ he said, cupping her face between his hands and kissing her cold nose tenderly. ‘But this is an extra special day.’
‘We won’t say anything to anyone else until Friday night,’ she warned him. ‘Maybe by then we’ll have worked out some plan about where to live and how we’re going to manage.’
‘If I do some overtime, maybe work Saturdays, we’ll scrape a deposit for a house together,’ he said. ‘There’s always emergency plumbing work in the winter months.’
‘Don’t you start worrying again,’ Fifi said firmly. ‘It will all work out fine, I know it will.’
Fifi was walking back to her bedroom from the bathroom on Friday evening when she heard her mother let out a kind of wail downstairs. ‘What is it, Mum?’ she shouted down over the banisters. ‘You haven’t burned your dress, have you?’
Her father came out into the hall and looked up at Fifi. He was ready in his dinner suit, just waiting for his wife to tie his tie, and his face looked stricken. ‘It’s President Kennedy,’ he said. ‘He’s been killed, shot by an assassin.
‘Fifi’s first thought was for herself: why did it have to be today and spoil our party? But she checked herself before she blurted that out, remembering her father had a high opinion of the President. ‘Oh Dad, how awful!’ she exclaimed. ‘Ought we to cancel the dinner?’
‘No, of course not,’ he said. ‘Our family is more important to me than a statesman, however much I admired him.’
A couple of hours later, Harry stood up after the waiter had taken all the orders. Everyone was talking about the assassination in Dallas and how President Kennedy died in his wife’s arms in the open-top car.
‘I know we are all shocked by John Kennedy’s death,’ he said, looking round the table at everyone. ‘It’s a terrible thing, a tragedy which will affect the whole world. But I’m going to suggest that we put it aside for tonight. This party to welcome Dan to our family is long overdue. Dan and Fifi’s first wedding anniversary passed without any celebration because of the deeds of evil men. We shouldn’t let more evil spoil our enjoyment of a family get-together.’
There was a cheer from his brother Ernest, and Robin made a little aside to Peter that he didn’t much care what went on in America anyway. Patty put a warning finger to her lips to hush him – she knew their father was just holding his sorrow in check.
There were fifteen round the huge table. Ernest and his wife Ann, who lived in Cambridge, and their two teenage sons, Robert and Michael. Clara’s younger sisters, Rose and Lily, who both lived in Somerset, had decided against bringing their four children as they were too young to be relied on to behave, but their husbands, Geoff and Fred, were both there. Harry, Clara, their children and Dan completed the family group.
All the men looked very debonair in dinner jackets, and the women were glamorous. Clara looked particularly lovely in a midnight-blue shantung dress with a boat neckline and Patty was surprisingly chic in black