Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [116]
‘It’s only natural that Fran should want to see Jack, Vi,’ Jean intervened to try to calm things down. ‘I’d like to go and visit him meself, the poor little lad. I know how busy you are with your war work an’ all.’ She paused and looked at Francine, whose eyes were shining with tears. ‘After all, Fran does have the right, and I can’t see that it would do any harm.’
‘That’s the trouble with you, Jean: you’re far too ready to see more good in people than there is. Edwin was right. He warned me that no good would come of us having Jack. And as for you, Francine, I’ve never heard of such ingratitude. In your shoes I’d certainly not want to be talking about what I’d done, but then of course I’d never have done something so shameful.’
‘You’re right you wouldn’t – not with your Edwin.’
Francine’s temper was up now, Jean recognised and her anxiety grew.
Vi’s mouth had gone thin and vengeful. ‘You’re a disgrace to our family and you should have stayed in America. That way I wouldn’t have to be reminded that my sister was an unmarried mother and wouldn’t even tell anyone who the father was – if she knew.’
Francine went white and for a moment Jean feared for her self-control, but Francine simply drew in her breath and then let it out again unsteadily.
‘I wanted to take Jack to America with me where we could have a new start, but you begged me to let you have him. You said that he would have a better life with you, that I wouldn’t be able to give him the time or the love that you could because I’d be on my own and working. You said that if I really loved him then I’d let you have him because you and Edwin could give him so much more than I could. You said that you would be the best mother in the world to him and that Edwin would be his father. You said all those things to me, Vi, but none of them were true were they, because if they were then Jack would be at home with you.’
Tears filled Jean’s eyes. She really felt for Fran and always had done; right from the moment Fran had come to her and told her about her trouble and the man who had caused it. Not that Jean would ever have dreamed of telling Vi the name of Jack’s real father, knowing how her twin felt about actors and the stage.
‘This is ridiculous. There’s a war on in this country, I’ll have you know, and it was the Government that said that children should be evacuated, not me and Edwin.’ Vi was blustering now. ‘We’ve done our best for him and no one could have done any more, but he’s not been an easy child. I’ve never known a baby cry so much, or be so sickly. Drove Edwin mad, it did; kept us all awake and upset poor Bella dreadfully. She couldn’t bring her school friends home because of him. He was that slow at walking we thought there must be something wrong with him. Edwin reckons that Jack hasn’t got a brain in his head.’
‘Give over do, Vi,’ Jean stopped her firmly. ‘Sam says he’s proper bright and you’ve said yourself that he’s always got his nose in a book.’ She turned to her younger sister. ‘He’s a lovely lad, Fran, a son anyone could be proud of.’
‘Well, you and me have got very different opinions of what makes a mother proud, then, Jean. That’s all I can say,’ said Vi.
Nothing that either of them could say to her could persuade Vi to change her mind and tell them where Jack was, and as Jean confided to Sam that night when they were in bed, she reckoned that Vi knew she had done wrong but was refusing to admit it.
‘I never thought I’d say this about me own twin, Sam, but what she’s done is downright wicked. Poor Francine went up to Grace’s room after she’d gone and cried her eyes out. I felt for her, I really did.’
‘I said all along that no good would come of your Vi having Jack,’ Sam reminded her.
‘I should have teken him meself and I blame meself for not doing, Sam. Poor Fran’s that upset.’
‘There was nothing you could have done, not with you being so poorly.’
In Grace’s bedroom Francine lay awake and dryeyed, looking up through the darkness. Jack. The pain that tore at her was as real and as sharp as the birth pangs she had felt bringing