‘We should tackle him right away, before the girls lose any more sleep,’ Mary said decisively.
Bobby grimaced. ‘To talk about it with a man though. I feel like I’d want the earth to swallow me.’
The way Mary’s cheeks coloured suggested that even the redoubtable old Daleswoman would find this difficult. However, she squared her shoulders. ‘For Florrie’s sake, I’ll force myself.’
Lilian rested a hand on Mary’s shoulder.
‘Let me go to him,’ she said quietly.
‘Could you do it?’
‘Perhaps it’s because George was the one to find me the night I nearly died in labour, but… yes, I believe I could. I mean I’m sure I’ll blush myself silly, but I won’t dry up. A father raising girls alone ought to know about these things.’
‘I could come with you, if Mary doesn’t mind deferring the baking for another hour,’ Bobby suggested.
‘He’ll be less embarrassed with only one of us,’ Lilian said. ‘I’ll call at the cow house and tuck some bunnies into my bag, then when I’ve spoken to George I can see Florrie. It’s no bad thing for her to get the talk from a new mother. I can help her understand that her monthlies are a natural part of growing into a woman.’
‘I suppose you are the best suited of the three of us,’ Bobby said. ‘Come back afterwards and tell us how it went.’
Lilian nodded. She took Florrie’s will and left.
‘Well!’ Mary said when she and Bobby were alone. ‘Nowt like a bit of drama on a Saturday afternoon.’
‘I’m just glad it’s nothing truly dangerous.’
‘It’s good of your sister to speak to Florrie. I’m sure the child would only be embarrassed to have an old lady like me explaining the facts of life to her.’
‘Do you think the captain will be shocked? I wonder he never asked us to have a talk with the girls before.’
‘Well, he’s a man, isn’t he?’ Mary said, rolling her eyes. ‘A good father, but a man all the same. They rarely think about women’s problems unless they’re forced to.’
‘Still, he was married.’
‘Married too long ago when he’s daughters to bring up, if you ask me.’ Mary started weighing out ingredients. ‘I’m surprised he hasn’t looked elsewhere before now. He’s not forty yet, and eight years a widower.’
‘I don’t know if the captain would marry again,’ Bobby said. ‘He seems to have been devoted to his wife.’
‘He ought to find himself someone who can be a mother to those girls.’ Mary passed Bobby a bowl of flour to sift. ‘Happen she might put a smile on his face while she’s about it. It’s no sin to love again.’
‘They’ve got you for their mothering,’ Bobby said, giving her a squeeze. ‘They’ve grown close to Lilian too since she started minding them – and to me, I suppose.’
‘Aye, but the three of us don’t live with them, do we? Look at Florrie. Fretting herself sickly over the most natural thing in the world, and all of us so busy with husbands and homes that we never noticed until she’d fairly made herself ill.’ Mary started rubbing fat and flour together with a vigorous, housewifely arm. ‘They need someone in the home. Someone young, who can help them do their growing up. It’s high time George realised that.’
It was nearly 2 p.m. when Bobby left Moorside. She only made one brief stop on the way home, to pop an envelope into the pillar box outside the post office.
The contents of this envelope had been kept a secret from nearly everybody. The only people in on it were Bobby’s WAAF friend Scarlet, who was the entertainments officer at RAF Wykeness, and her pal Archie Sumner, currently touring with an ENSA party. Bobby was trying not to pin too much on this letter, but she couldn’t help hoping it might give her the lifeline she was craving when forced to stop work. The address was Broadcasting House, London.
This task completed, Bobby fairly rushed to get home. She hadn’t forgotten her promise to let Charlie lure her back to bed after work. The novelty of being able to hold each other whenever they wanted would, she was sure, take a long time to wear off.
Bobby could have left for home quarter of an hour earlier, the mince pies having been consigned to the oven, but she had been waiting for Lilian to return with news.
Lil had looked pale when she had come back, as if the experience had tired her, but she had been smiling. The captain had taken the news with little embarrassment, she said, although he had been angry with himself for failing to address this aspect of his daughters’ growing up. Naivety and not neglect had been the reason – not that he wasn’t aware this was a natural part of every woman’s life, but that he had never been told at what age he might expect it to begin. He had seemed to believe it would be four or five years until Florrie would experience this particular phenomenon. In his eyes, Bobbysupposed, his daughter was very much a baby still.
Anyhow, it was a comfort to know the little girl’s mind had been set at rest. Florrie had been relieved, of course, but this had been paired with horror when Lil had told her that the bleeding would be a monthly occurrence until Florrie was – in her own young mind, at least – a quite elderly lady.
Once Lil had explained that the bleeding was only the sign of a normal, healthy growing-up body, however, Florrie began to seem a little pleased at this mark of encroaching womanhood. There was little that appealed more to twelve-year-old girls than the prospect of joining the ranks of the grown-ups. The icing on the cake had been the promise of a girls’ shopping trip for Florrie, Jess and Lilian, to buy not only the things Florrie would need for her monthlies but some other little luxuries as well – perhaps even her first lipstick, if her father agreed and she only wore it for play. Lilian said she had left the girl tear-stained but smiling, secure in the knowledge that the afterlife wasn’t beckoning just yet.
Honestly, it was a foolish world, Bobby reflected. Women were supposedly the naive ones, many of them kept so in the dark about sex that they were little better than children. This made them easy prey for a certain type of man. Bobby was aware of too many girls who had suffered at men’s hands not because of what they knew but what they had been kept ignorant of. Some who, even on their wedding night, had no idea how one would go about creating a baby.
