Imogen shrugged her frail shoulders; she seemed to be shrinking by the day. ‘How long is a piece of string? As long as she needs to. For months at least I should say. It takes time to heal.’ She deliberately omitted to tell Emmy about the baby Abi was carrying. If things worked out as she had planned there would be no need for Emmy or anyone else to even know there had been a baby. In her letter she had asked Mrs Merryweather to find the child a decent home when it was born or put it into an orphanage if that was what Abi wanted, and then she could come home with her reputation unblemished if she chose to.
‘Thank you for telling me,’ Emmy said sincerely. ‘Although I can’t think why Abi didn’t come to me for help if she just wanted to hide away. She could have gone home to lick her wounds at Mama’s.’
‘Like I said, she’s had her heart broken and she needs to be away from everyone.’
Emmy seemed to accept that explanation. ‘Then thank you again for helping her. But may I at least write to my mother just to let her know that she’s safe?’
‘Of course you may.’ Imogen inclined her head and dropped back on to her pillows, exhausted. She clearly needed to rest, so after making sure that she had everything she needed, Emmy left the room in a much happier frame of mind.
At that moment in Lytham St Anne’s, Abi was sitting in the large bay window of her aunt’s house watching the ships far out at sea. She sometimes wished she was on one of them heading for a far-off land where no one would know of her shame. She also wondered what would have become of her if Madame Bissett hadn’t taken pity on her the night that Hugo had rejected her and broken her heart. She wondered if the woman Maria had persuaded to take her in for two months had any kindly feeling towards her, even if she was just in it for the lodging money. The good-hearted French woman had loaned her the money for her fare back to England and once there the only person she could think of who might keep her secret and help her was her Aunt Imogen. The suggestion that she might like to hide out at her aunt’s holiday home had been like the answer to a prayer for Abi and although the combined train and coach journey to get there had been tedious, she could think of nowhere better to be in her condition. Mrs Merryweather, a plump motherly widow with a heart as big as a bucket, had welcomed her with open arms and had never once made her feel wicked for being an unmarried mother-to-be.
‘You are not the first and I’m sure you won’t be the last, lass,’ she had said stoically when she had read Imogen’s letter.
‘And you’ll help me find a home for the baby when it’s born?’ Abi had asked hopefully.
Mrs M, as she preferred to be called, had shaken her head. ‘There’s no need to be worrying about things like that yet,’ she had advised. ‘Let’s just get the little one here and then see how you feel, eh?’
Angry colour had risen in Abi’s cheeks. ‘But Ialreadyknow how I shall feel!’ she had argued. ‘This child will be a bastard and my reputation will be gone forever if I consider keeping it.’
‘Even so I think we should take one step at a time.’ It was very clear that Mrs M would not be swayed on this matter and so now Abi was just trying to take one day at a time as her waistline expanded. She spent much of each day letting out the seams of the few gowns she had brought with her but she was aware that soon even they wouldn’t fit her and she felt fat and awkward. She was also very prone to tears. The least little thing could set her off, but again Mrs M took it all in her stride.
‘It’s quite normal in your condition,’ she told her. ‘You’ll settle down again once the baby arrives.’
Abi wasn’t so sure. Some days she felt so depressed about the way Hugo had treated her that she wanted to die. The only bright spot in her day was the time she spent with Mrs M’s son. Bertie was twenty-two years old and worked as a carpenter in the nearby town of Blackpool, which was also a very popular holiday resort during the summer months. When he wasn’t at his day job, he was busy seeing to anything that needed to be done about the house and garden. He was tall and slim with a thatch of fair curly hair that no amount of Macassar oil seemed able to tame. He could never be termed as handsome: his nose was a little crooked after he had broken it as a child and he could be quite shy, but his eyes were his saving grace. They were the colour of bluebells and seemed to twinkle when he spoke to her and she soon discovered that his nature was as kindly as his mother’s. Not once did he condemn her for the position she found herself in, but instead he tried to speak positively to her of her future.
More than once he had tried to persuade her to go for an evening stroll along the pier with him to get a blast of fresh air but Abi always refused.
‘Whywould I want anyone to see me like this?’ she had snapped on the last occasion and had felt instantly contrite when he looked upset. ‘I’m sorry,’ she had mumbled, close to tears. ‘I just feel so ashamed. If my mother ever found out .?.?.’
‘If your mother ever did, I’m sure she would come to love the baby once she was over the shock, it will be her first grandchild after all,’ he had pointed out gently, but she had shaken her head.
‘No .?.?. you don’t understand. My mother had high hopes of me making a good marriage. But now who will want me? I am soiled goods.’
‘No, Abigail, just look in the mirror; you are beautiful.’ Then he had turned and slowly left the room leaving her with tears of self-pity streaming down her pale cheeks.
Dragging her eyes from the window Abi stared about the room. It was furnished very much in the style of Imogen’s house in London with elaborate furniture scattered about and gilt-framed pictures and mirrors on the walls. This room and many more in the house had been shut up when she had first arrived, the furniture hidden beneath huge dust sheets as Mrs M and Bertie tended to live in the large kitchen that overlooked the well-kept garden at the rear but Mrs M had soon whipped the covers away insisting, ‘You need somewhere where you can be private and sit and watch the world go by. Mrs Dubois would want you to be comfortable and it’s no trouble at all to light an extra fire.’ And so now Abi spent a great deal of each day in there and found it surprisingly relaxing being able to gaze out to sea from the window.
She was still sitting there that evening. The lamplighter had just passed by and the glow from the lamps made the fast-falling snow sparkle like shattered diamonds. She was admiring the scene when she noticed a familiar figure heading her way dragging something behind him. Realising it was Bertie she quickly rose and hurried to the door to let him in. Mrs M was busy in the kitchen preparing the evening meal for them all and Abi didn’t want to disturb her.
‘Hello, Bertie, what have you got there?’ She gave him a welcoming smile and gasped with delight when he hauled a Christmas tree into the hall, leaving trails of snow across Mrs M’s polished tiles.
‘I thought a tree might cheer you up,’ he told her with a cheeky grin. ‘It is almost Christmas after all. I’ll set it in a bucket of earth after dinner and then you could perhaps decorate it for me ma tomorrow. It will give you something to do.’
Despite how miserable she had been feeling, Abi clapped her hands with delight. She had always loved Christmas and though this tree was nowhere near as big as the tall stately ones of about ten foot that used to grace the hall of Astley House – it was perhaps only half the height at the most – she loved it all the same.
‘And I thought when you’d done that you could perhaps come for a walk with me to the park where we could cut some holly.’
Abi opened her mouth to refuse but he held his hand up. ‘I know – you don’t want to be seen out because you think people will know you’re not married, so I got you this.’ Fumbling in his pocket, he produced a small box and handed it to her and when she snapped the lid, she saw a thin gold wedding band nestling on a bed of silk.
‘People won’t see your hand if you’re wearing gloves but I thought you might feel better with it on anyway.’
It was such a thoughtful gift that tears sprang to her eyes and she lowered her head as he lifted it from the box and gently placed it on the third finger of her left hand.
‘There, now if anyone asks you can say you’re married .?.?. to me if you like.’ He flushed to the roots of his hair as Abi rose on tiptoe and gently pecked his cheek, then grabbing the tree again he began to haul it towards the kitchen, saying in a choky voice, ‘I’d best get this into the kitchen before me mam skelps me for mucking up her hall floor. I’ll see you at dinner.’
Abi stared down at the thin gold band thinking how wonderful it would have been if it had been Hugo who had placed it on her finger. And then with a sigh she returned to her seat to resume her lonely vigil at the drawing room window staring out at the snowy vista beyond.
As Bertie had suggested, she spent the next day decorating the tree with the dainty glass baubles that Mrs M fetched from the loft. She had just finished it when suddenly she felt the baby kick inside her. A look of shock crossed her face as her hand flew to her stomach.
