LITMIR.BIZ

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forget. They wouldn’t be on call twenty-four hours a day.’

      ‘Alice! You’re looking for trouble. Drew isn’t helpless. He had six years in the Navy, don’t forget. It’ll all work out, in the end. I suppose that all I can think of right now is that we’re going to have a Christmas wedding in the family and a Christmas baby, given luck. And another wedding in June. Makes you giddy, just to think about it.’

      ‘It does. And coming back to Lyn – I’ll bet you anything you like that as soon as she gets back to Llangollen, she’ll send a cable to her folks, Drew and I engaged. Letter follows. Hope she manages to get back all right. She’s got to change trains at Manchester and Chester, don’t forget. Hope she hasn’t got her head in the clouds and ends up in Liverpool, instead. And y’know, Julia – Drew and Kitty wasn’t to be, but he and Lyn will make a go of it, I know they will.’

      ‘They will, Alice. As long as we all remember – without being in any way disloyal to Kitty’s memory – that it’s Drew and Lyn, now.’

      ‘Drew and Lyn,’ Alice held high her teacup. ‘Bless them both. And may they be very happy together.’

      She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye, then smiled brilliantly at Julia.

      Her dear friend, Julia. Her almost-sister who knew all about first loves and last loves. She would, Alice decided, make a very good mother-in-law.

      ‘Well, look who’s here!’ Tatiana Sutton had seen her cousin’s approach and run to the door to greet him. ‘If it isn’t the blushing bridegroom himself. Come on in, do!’

      ‘Hey up, Tatty. I’ve hardly been engaged a day, yet. Give a man a chance!’ He took her in his arms, hugging her tightly. ‘I’m still a bit bemused. Never thought she’d have me.’

      ‘Have you? She’s been crazy about you for years! You’ll both be very happy, I know it. Hang on, and I’ll call Bill. He’s in his garret, painting. Won’t be a tick.’

      ‘No, Tatty. Give it a couple of minutes, if you don’t mind. You see, I feel really good about Lyn and me. Is that wrong of me? You’ll understand – Tim, I mean. How do you feel about marrying Bill, or is it too personal a question?’

      ‘Coming from you, Drew, no it isn’t. And I’m very happy about Bill and me. He knows that Tim and I were lovers. Bill and I haven’t been. He would rather wait, he said, till we were married. But it isn’t a problem, not even when I talk about Tim, once in a while. Tim is a part of my past and you can’t wipe out what has been – just accept you’ve got to live with it, be it good or bad.’

      ‘Thanks, Tatty. I hoped you’d say that. I won’t ever forget Kitty, Lyn understands that.’

      ‘I like Lyn, Drew. You’ll be great together, like Bill and me.’

      ‘And Mother and Uncle Nathan, too. A different kind of loving, Mother told me, but good.’

      ‘Exactly. So let’s sit in the conservatory and talk weddings. Yours and mine.’

      ‘Y’know something, Tatiana Sutton? You were such a brat when you were little, but you’ve grown into a lovely person – and beautiful, like your mother.’

      ‘Why thanks, cousin dear. And there’s another happy second-time-around. My mother and Ewart Pryce. She’s stupidly happy with him but she wasn’t, with my father.’

      ‘How do you know?’

      ‘I just do, that’s all. No one would talk to me about my father. Elliot Sutton. For all I knew about him, he was just a name on a gravestone. I even asked your mother to tell me, and she’s a most reasonable lady and broad-minded too, but not one word would she ever say. She just went all vinegar-faced then said, rather apologetically, that she didn’t remember a lot about him because he was always gadding about, somewhere or other. And then she said, “Mind, if you were to ask me about Nathan …” Why does she so obviously love my father’s brother, yet hates my father?’

      ‘Don’t know, Tatty. All I know is she goes all pofaced about him. Lady, too. I’ve learned to keep off the subject.’

      ‘Well, I’ve found out, Drew, but keep it to yourself, mind. Uncle Igor told me, swore me to secrecy, though. I got quite close to him. Used to visit at Cheyne Walk when he was there alone living in the basement, and the Petrovska here at Denniston because of the bombing on London. And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned bombs on London.’

      ‘Tatty, bombs did drop on London. Nothing’s going to change that. But are you sure you want to tell me?’

      ‘I’m sure. Quite simply, my father was a womanizer. He didn’t love my mother but she had a title. Countess, actually, which meant very little in Russia and still less when you are a penniless White Russian refugee. But he married her to please his mother because she was a bloody snob and wanted a title in the family, and was desperate for a grandson. Grandmother Clementina thought her money could buy anything. I think had my little brother not been stillborn, my father could have gone his own sweet way with his mother’s blessing and his pockets lined with cash.

      ‘But my father overstepped the mark. Whilst Mother was pregnant he seduced a housemaid, here at Denniston. She was very beautiful, I believe. Spoke no English. Natasha Yurovska. She came with them to England when the Communists took over in Russia.’

      ‘So what happened to her?’ Drew felt bound to ask.

      ‘When my brother was stillborn I was told that the Petrovska and Uncle Igor took my mother and the housemaid back to London; both of them away from my father. I don’t know what became of the girl. It was all hushed up, the Petrovska saw to that. Had to be. Natasha Yurovska was pregnant.’

      ‘And does my mother know this, Tatty?’

      ‘About Natasha? I don’t know, but I don’t think that’s why she hates him. I reckon Uncle Nathan knows, though. Mother was once deeply religious – used him as her confessor I believe, but priests never say anything.’

      ‘And are you thinking what I am thinking …?’

      ‘That I have a brother or a sister – well, half so. It was one of the good things about finding out about my father, but I shan’t try to find him – or her. Needles in haystacks, and that sort of thing. But somewhere out there, someone belongs to me. I’ve asked my mother but she told me she didn’t know when or where Natasha Yurovska’s baby was born. Nobody would tell her. I sometimes think that even Uncle Igor wasn’t told. The Petrovska refused to say. But this is neither the time nor the place to lay souls bare. I’m sorry, Drew. I shouldn’t have gone on about it, especially when you are so happy – and me, too. We should forget about my father. He’s gone, and we shall talk about weddings and about being happy – and that it’s all right if sometimes we mention Tim and Kitty because people can love twice, but differently. Uncle Nathan and Aunt Julia are living proof of that.’

      ‘Well, it’s your turn first, Tatty. Are you excited?’

      ‘N-no. Not starry-eyed, breathlessly excited. More a warm sort of contentment and having someone at long last I can trust and who will always be there for me. And of course, it’ll be good going to bed with him,’ she said without so much as the blinking of an eyelid. ‘With Tim it was a kind of snatched, there’s-no-tomorrow loving. Things are different, now the war is over. We can plan ahead; have kids. And kids I said. Not an only child, fussed over by its mother and not wanted by its father. How many will you and Lyn have, Drew?’

      ‘Haven’t a clue.’ He laughed, disarmed by her frankness. ‘Lyn wants children, though. She told me so.’

      ‘Good. That’s settled, then. And you are both to come to my wedding. It’ll be the week before Christmas. No formal invitations, or anything. That okay?’

      ‘Accepted soon as asked. There’s Bill, crossing the yard.’

      ‘Mm. He’s an old love. Doesn’t want to sleep with me before we are married on account

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