LITMIR.BIZ

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looking better all the time,’ she confided in Bonnie, and nothing more was said about Kenya.

      Bonnie was more or less left to her own devices. So long as Richard was happy, Lady Brayfield left them to it. Richard had a fairly full timetable. Bonnie made sure he ate a good breakfast and then they walked to the prep school where he was a dayboy. He was an average student but under Bonnie’s tuition, or perhaps it was her encouragement that helped him go that extra mile, his grades began to show a marked improvement. Whenever she could, Bonnie took Richard to see the sights of London. They would walk around Trafalgar Square, or go up to Buckingham Palace. Richard’s favourite place in the whole world was the British Museum. He loved looking at the fossils and stuffed animals in cases and gradually his enthusiasm sparked a similar interest in Bonnie.

      Back in the town house, she taught him to play whist and patience while he taught her the rudiments of chess. He beat her every time (which he loved) but gradually she got the hang of it. In the evenings, when he’d finished his homework, they would read together, do jigsaws or make Meccano models. Bonnie wasn’t so good at the model making, but it gave Richard a real sense of achievement to be able to show an adult what to do. He never talked about his father but at night as he knelt by his bed, he always prayed for his mother.

      ‘God bless Mummy and please help her to get better. I miss her very much but I pray she won’t miss me and be unhappy.’

      His prayer never failed to bring a tear to Bonnie’s eye. What was her own mother doing now? With Christmas only three weeks away, she’d be sorting out the Thrift Club. It was only a small thing but it made such a big difference to her neighbours. Her mother was always thinking of others. Bonnie was proud of her and longed to give her a hug and tell her so. She missed her so much and the small house where they lived had taken on a romantic rose-coloured hue in her memories. Bonnie forgot about the lack of privacy, the freezing cold bedrooms and the fact that she had to wash in the scullery. All she remembered was the fun and laughter she, Rita and Mum shared together.

      As she tucked Richard into his bed, she was thinking about the singsongs they’d had around the piano. That piano was her mother’s pride and joy, a present from Dad when they were young. Mum was a good pianist and she could pick up a tune in no time. Her father always said she could have been aconcert pianist but Mum would push his arm playfully and say, ‘Get away with you, you daft ’apeth.’

      Bonnie’s voice cracked slightly as she said, ‘Goodnight, Richard’, but the boy didn’t notice.

      Turning over he snuggled down under his eiderdown with a sleepy, ‘’Night.’

      Bonnie’s evenings were her own. If she had no socks to darn (even the wealthy darned their socks it seemed) Bonnie could sit with Dora and Cook in the little parlour and listen to the radio or she could spend time in her own room, knitting booties and matinee jackets for the baby.

      Cook and Dora had worked for Lady Brayfield for years. They didn’t talk a lot but it didn’t take Bonnie long to realise that life hadn’t been kind to them. Dora was roughly the same age as Lady Brayfield. They had played together as children.

      ‘My mother worked in the big ’ouse,’ Dora told her with pride. ‘She cleaned the master’s rooms. Lady Brayfield says she were the best cleaner they ever ’ad.’

      When she was sixteen, Dora had fallen for a smooth-talking man and been ‘put in the family way’ as Cook put it. Her baby was stillborn and Dora was so upset she had been declared mentally unstable and put into an institution. It took Lady Brayfield more than twenty years to get her out. The years of incarceration had left Dora deeply scarred. She was a slave to routine and became upset at any deviation but she was a hard worker. Grey-haired, even though she couldn’t be more than forty, Dora was a heavy woman with square hard-working hands.

      If Dora was chunky, Cook was dainty. Standing at less than five foot tall, Cook was reluctant to even tell anyone her name. She was an intelligent woman but she found socialising difficult. Bonnie had no idea what had happened to Cook but a chance remark from Lady Brayfield made her wonder if Cook had been the victim of child cruelty. The pair of them were quite content to live together as friends, supporting each other and devoting themselves to the care of the woman who had rescued them and given them their lives back again. They never intruded on Bonnie’s privacy but they were welcoming whenever she wanted to share her off duty time with them.

      But tonight Bonnie was in no mood for company. As she climbed the stairs to her room, Lady Brayfield called her downstairs into her sitting room. Bonnie’s heart began to beat faster as Lady Brayfield closed the door behind them.

      ‘Bonnie, I haven’t been disappointed since you came here,’ she began. ‘But the time has come … You cannot stay here in your condition.’

      Bonnie nodded miserably.

      ‘Although you hardly show at the moment, I think you will agree that we must act before Richard has the slightest idea that you may be pregnant. Have you had morning sickness?’

      Bonnie shook her head. ‘That finished long before I came.’

      ‘Have you said anything to Dora and Cook?’

      Bonnie shook her head.

      ‘When you came I proposed that you might stay until the end of January,’ Lady Brayfield continued, ‘but I overheard Dora mentioning to Cook that she thought you might be in the family way. They had no idea I was there, or I am sure they wouldn’t have said it. However, it’s left me wondering if you’ve said anything.’

      ‘No, Madam,’ cried Bonnie. ‘Honestly I haven’t.’

      Lady Brayfield looked thoughtful.

      ‘I shall start looking for somewhere to live straight away,’ Bonnie said quickly. She was struggling with her emotions. She would be sad to leave this house and her generous employer, but she had no wish to cause any embarrassment.

      ‘Have you any idea what you would like to do?’

      Bonnie smiled wistfully. ‘I always wanted to look after children,’ she said, ‘but it’s hard to imagine how I could with my own baby to look after.’ Her eyes were brimming with tears and she willed them not to fall. ‘I would like to try and keep the baby but if I can’t, I’ll have to let him go for adoption.’

      ‘It’s not widely known,’ Lady Brayfield said softly, ‘but the government has made provision for single women to keep their babies. Would you like me to make some enquiries?’

      Bonnie’s face lit up. ‘Would that mean I could keep my baby?’

      ‘It won’t be easy,’ said Lady Brayfield. ‘You’ll have to find somewhere to live and you’ll probably have to run the gauntlet when it comes to mean-spirited judgemental moralists.’

      ‘I don’t care what people think,’ Bonnie said fiercely. ‘I made an honest mistake.’

      ‘Perhaps it might be better to pretend you had a husband who was killed.’

      Bonnie looked thoughtful. Eventually she said, ‘I hate lies. My mother always said a liar had to have a good memory.’

      ‘Your mother sounds like a remarkable woman,’ Lady Brayfield remarked. ‘Bonnie, are you sure that you couldn’t go back home?’

      ‘No,’ said Bonnie.

      ‘If it’s a question of the train fare …’

      ‘It’s not that. It’s the shame. I could never go home and shame my mother.’ She stood to leave.

      ‘Then I shall make some enquiries.’

      ‘May I ask one thing?’ Bonnie asked cautiously.

      Lady Brayfield held her gaze.

      ‘May I ask why you are helping me like this?’

      ‘You remind me of someone I once knew,’ said Lady Brayfield turning towards the drinks cabinet. Keeping her back to Bonnie, she reached

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