The Grafton Girls - Annie Groves [139]
‘Here, there’s a letter for you,’ Myra told her as she walked into the kitchen. Taking the envelope, Diane turned her back on her without speaking. Myra had made several attempts at getting her to act as though nothing had happened, but Diane was too disgusted by what she had done to want to have anything to do with her.
‘Still on your high horse, are you?’ Myra sniffed now. ‘Well, suit yourself then.’ When Diane didn’t respond she added sharply, ‘Anyway, I don’t see why you get so hot under the collar about something that doesn’t affect you.’
Diane put down her letter and turned round. ‘When someone tells the kind of lies that mean that an innocent man’s whole future is put at risk, then it affects everyone who knows about it, whether or not they are personally involved,’ she told her curtly, adding in exasperation when Myra shrugged sullenly and turned away from her, ‘Doesn’t it mean anything to you that Glen is being accused of something that was nothing to do with him because of your lies?’
‘I never said I’d told any lies,’ Myra denied. ‘It’s you that’s said that.’
Refusing to respond, Diane picked up her letter and headed for the stairs. Myra was quite plainly already dressed for going out for the evening, which suited her because she was going out herself – to the Grafton to meet up with Lee. Her heart thudded with guilty excitement.
Her letter was from her mother, which rather surprised her because she didn’t normally write mid-week. She sat down on her bed and opened it, quickly scanning the first few lines almost absently and then staring at the letter in disbelief, as she went back to the beginning and read it again.
Darling, I have thought long and hard about telling you this but your father and I have talked it over and we feel that we can’t not tell you.
Kit came to see us over the weekend. Of course, your father was all for refusing to let him step over the threshold to begin with but in the end he gave way.
Kit asked us to pass on to you his apologies for the pain he caused you. He said he couldn’t explain himself fully to us without having explained himself fully to you first, which of course we could both understand. However, he did say that there is an explanation he wants to make to you and an apology he needed to give to you.
Oh, my dear, if you had seen him. He was still very much our dear familiar Kit and yet at the same time he has changed, become more thinking and less carefree, I would say, more a man who has gone through the awful experience of war with all that that means rather than a boy who sees it as a kind of great adventure.
He asked – so humbly and sweetly that it moved me almost to tears I have to admit -if we would give him your address so that he could write to you. Your father and I talked this over and we decided that we could not do that without asking you first what you yourself wanted. We know how hard these past few months have been for you and what you must have suffered, even though you have been so very brave and kept this to yourself.
We cannot advise you, darling, your dear old parents who have never had to face what you modern young people are having to live with day in and day out. Daddy and I both liked Kit very much, but what is important to us is that our darling girl is happy, and that when she marries it is to a man who puts her happiness before everything and anything else. My feeling as a mother is that your happiness is more important to me than anything else. You have not said so to us but as your mother I have detected in your recent letters a certain note of light-heartedness I was beginning to fear you had lost for ever, and I have wondered if this is because you have met someone special.
Much as we like Kit, it is you, my darling, who is closest to our hearts. If you want us to give Kit your address then that is what we shall do. If you don’t then you may be sure that we shall respect that.
Your loving mother
Diane’s hands had started to tremble.
She put the letter down