‘I didn’t know you had a cousin in Yorkshire, Daddy,’ said Lizzie.
‘Please don’t interrupt, Elizabeth,’ said her father. ‘She lives near a Mother and Baby Home. When you are approximately seven months pregnant, you will move into the home. You will stay there for six weeks after you’ve had the baby, at which time your baby will be adopted.’
Lizzie noticed that her mother was now dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.
‘But I don’t want to have my baby adopted,’ said Lizzie.
‘The only alternative to this plan’, said her father sternly, glowering at his daughter and his weeping wife, ‘is for you to be booked into a special clinic. I hope you don’t want me to elaborate on what would happen in that clinic.’
‘What would I do while I’m staying with this cousin I’ve never heard of before?’ asked Lizzie.
‘Well, I hope you would be helpful around the house!’ Her father suddenly became angry, as if Lizzie had already said she wouldn’t help. ‘She lives in Halifax in a small house. I don’t suppose she has much in the way of modern conveniences.’
‘Have you asked her if she’ll have me?’ There would hardly have been time, Lizzie felt. It was unlikely Cousin Margaret had a telephone.
‘She’d be glad to have you, I’m sure,’ said Lizzie’s mother, rallying. ‘We’ll pay for your keep. We’ll have to pay for your keep at the Mother and Baby Home, too.’
‘I think it would be better if I didn’t go to the Mother and Baby Home,’ said Lizzie.
‘But surely, Elizabeth, it would be better to have the baby adopted than to – you know – have an operation. Sometimes you can’t have children after –you know – and then I’ll never have grandchildren!’ She started to sniff as well as dab now.
Lizzie got up. ‘I’ll clear away. Would anyone like a cup of tea?’
Lizzie washed up the supper things and made the tea. Her father had taken her mother to the sitting room and was, if Lizzie knew anything about her parents, now patting her hand while they sat together on the sofa.
She would have to make her own plan. She had time, although not a lot of it – she needed to leave her parents’ house as quickly as possible.
She took a tray with tea things through to her parents. ‘The thing is, Mummy and Daddy, while obviously I am desperately sorry this has happened—’
Her father moved to interrupt but Lizzie managed to put him off with a smile.
‘While I’m desperately sorry – and I know how much I’ve disappointed you—’
‘We sent you to London to better yourself, not to sleep around and get yourself in the family way!’ said her mother.
‘I didn’t – don’t – sleep around, Mummy,’ said Lizzie, determined to be firm but kind. ‘And I have bettered myself, in many ways. However …’ She was proud of this word, it sounded as if she knew what she was going to say next. ‘Things we none of us wanted to happen have happened. One thing, anyway.’
‘Are you saying the man forced himself on you? That does put rather a different light on it.’ Her mother looked at her father to check this was true.
‘No! He didn’t force himself on me. It was – mutual.’ Although Lizzie was fed up with people asking her if Hugo had more or less raped her, at least her parents were at last showing some interest in her well-being by asking the question. Up to this point it had only been about how her actions affected them.
‘What did he say when you told him you were pregnant?’ asked her father.
Lizzie picked up the teapot and began to pour. ‘He doesn’t know. I didn’t know! I could hardly tell him before I knew for sure. And I would like to ask why Dr Sharp told you, Mummy, instead of me?’
Her mother looked self-righteous. ‘He told me because I’m your mother. He thought – and I totally agree with him – that as your mother I should know anything that affected your well-being.’
Lizzie didn’t reply.
‘So you’re going to tell the man who did this to you now,’ her father stated.
‘No,’ said Lizzie. She did feel a bit ashamed. She knew it would have been the sensible thing to do in any other circumstances.
Her mother gasped. ‘Oh, Elizabeth!’ she said, horrified. ‘He’s not married already?’
‘No, he’s not!’ Lizzie was just as appalled at the thought of sleeping with a married man as her mother was but realised a second later that an engaged man was hardly better. After all, the fact he was engaged already was the reason she wasn’t going to tell him she was pregnant.
‘Then you must tell him,’ said her father. ‘He must make an honest woman of you.’
