His mother didn’t so much as blink. ‘Take the money or don’t, Hope. Either way, you won’t be seeing my son again, and I wasn’t bluffing when I said I’d call the authorities. You have until the end of the week to get your affairs in order and go.’
‘Please,’ she begged, as fear rose inside her like a snake, choking at her throat, terrifying her.
‘You are inconsequential to me, Hope. I only care to know whether you’ll be taking the money I’m so generously offering you, or not.’ She laughed. ‘But let’s face it, we both know that someone like you won’t walk away from it.’
It felt as if Hope’s world was crashing down around her, and it took everything she had not to sink to the floor in defeat. A sob rose inside her and she fought valiantly against it.
Instead of quavering, Hope forced herself to step forward, holding the envelope and turning on her heel. She didn’t say a word as she walked through the house, her back ramrod straight, her eyes fixed ahead of her, and it wasn’t until she’d turned the corner and was alone on the footpath that she sank to her knees and cried.
She didn’t want to take the money, but what choice did she have? If Gus didn’t send word or come home soon, if she was forced to keep forging ahead alone, if there was a chance she could be arrested…
Hope pressed one hand to her mouth, stifling the scream that so desperately wanted to come out, the other clutching the envelope.Just come home, Gus. Please, just come home. I can’t do this without you.
27
Going home was something Hope had never intended doing. When she’d left, she’d meant to leave forever, but after what had happened with Gus’s mother, she hadn’t felt she had much choice. She wouldn’t go to her parents, but there was one person she trusted enough to turn to, and she was standing in front of him right now. The one person in the world, other than Gus, who might just care for her enough to do something extraordinary. Which is why she’d taken the very next train to their village.
But she was fast learning that even her brother was prepared to turn his back on her in her time of need.
‘Pierre,’ Hope said, reaching for her brother’s hand as she studied his face. ‘Please tell me you’ll help me.’
‘What exactly do you want from me, Hope?’ he asked. ‘You chose to leave here, you chose to do this to yourself and?—’
‘I had no choice!’ she cried. ‘You don’t understand what it’s like for a woman in this world. You have agency over your own life, but I was never given that choice, Pierre. I was told what to do, never asked, can’t you see? Can’t you understand how different our lives are, and what I’ve had to endure?’
‘Perhaps if you’d followed Father’s wishes, things wouldn’t have turned out this way. If you’d just?—’
‘Let him strike me again?’ she asked, seeing the shock on his face as she threw her words at him.
‘He—’
‘Don’t pretend you didn’t know what he did to Mother! We all lived in that house and we know what he did,’ she said. ‘But when he dared to lay a hand on me, I left. I only hope that you don’t stand by and let him do the same to Claudette.’
Pierre’s face fell and he opened his arms to her. Hope, for the first time in as long as she could remember, stepped to him, letting him hold her. It was like they were children again, her brother comforting her when she’d fallen from a tree or a bicycle as she’d tried to keep up with him.Thiswas the brother she’d returned home to see, not the one who’d scolded her with his words only seconds earlier.
When he let her go, his gaze was softer, as if he’d realised the truth of what she’d been through. As if he finally saw her decisions through her eyes, instead of whatever lies her father had told him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know, but I should have guessed.’
Hope only nodded; she didn’t trust her voice enough to say anything else, but if she could have, she would have thanked him.
‘I know you’ll have money, but you’ll need more,’ Pierre said, turning away from her and going to his desk. She watched as he took notes from a drawer and then bent to write something down.
‘You think I should go to London?’ she asked, finding her voice again. ‘That I should obey his mother’s order and just leave instead of trying to find a way to stay?’
When he turned back to her, he nodded. ‘I don’t see that you have any other choice, not without your Gus to care for you. If only you’d married before he left, you wouldn’t be in this position.’
Hope blinked away fresh tears as she took the money her brother pressed into her hand, staring down at the handwritten scrap of paper he’d included with it. He wasn’t wrong about not getting married sooner, but everything had happened so quickly, and they just hadn’t had time. If his father hadn’t hidden the conscription letter from him they would have, but by the time Gus had found it, there was nothing either of them could do. Telling her brother that wasn’t going to help the predicament she’d found herself in.
‘What’s this?’ Hope asked, trying to keep her frustration from simmering over.
‘Our uncle’s address in London,’ he said. ‘I don’t know everything, but I do know that he might be sympathetic to you. I would seek him out, if I were you. He might…’
Hope waited. ‘He might what?’
‘I think there are reasons that will endear him to being more understanding than anyone else. From what I can gather, he wasn’t treated well by his own family when they discovered certain things about him, and certainly not by our parents. It’s why Mother never spoke of him.’
She stared at the name.Charles. Pierre was right about their mother never speaking of him, and her father had always ended any conversation that included him when her brothers had sporadically asked about their uncle, and Hope had never understood why. It surprised her that Pierre seemed to know what he did about him, but then she supposed as the eldest son he was privy to much more family information than she was or ever would be.
