Page 37

In the days that followed the terrible news, Beth found she was left with what felt like a big black stone inside her.

No room for laughter, joy or even tears, she just went through the days like a clockwork toy.

At night, lying sleepless in bed, she tried to cheer herself by imagining Jack in a prison camp, writing her a letter to tell her he loved her, which would arrive any day.

But her mind kept flitting to imagining him in hospital, heavily bandaged, his limbs all broken and burned, and him crying out in pain.

She thought that this was because it was true.

All thoughts of putting up Christmas decorations were gone. If Rose asked her to do something, she did it, but there was no chatter or smiles. She was so wrapped up in grief she couldn’t even appreciate how hard it must be for Rose to be with her.

She couldn’t go shopping; to stand in a queue was beyond her. She couldn’t eat either, but cleaning was fine, as it was mindless.

Rose watched Beth one morning, nibbling the edge of a quarter of a slice of toast. Once she ate two full slices with jam or marmalade, plus anything else on offer. Weight was dropping off her, she looked gaunt, and it was less than ten days since the news came.

Finally, Rose knew she must intervene, even if she seemed cruel.

‘Beth, this has to stop,’ she said firmly, plonking the teapot down on the breakfast table.

‘You’ll be no good to Jack when he comes back if you go on like this.

It’s close to Christmas, we need to buy the tree, put up the holly and other decorations, and see what we can get to eat in the shops.

If you care anything for me, pull yourself together and come back to me.

We can wait for more news of Jack together. ’

Beth turned to Rose, her eyes dead. ‘I don’t want to live without him,’ she said. ‘I deserve this misery.’

‘There is no evidence he is dead,’ Rose said sharply.

‘He’s merely missing. That could mean he wasn’t put on a list of prisoners of war, or they were so busy at the hospital they could even have put the wrong name down.

But the army is thorough, Beth. They will track him down.

He’d be horrified if he knew you’d gone to pieces like this. ’

‘It’s a punishment for something I did that was bad,’ she whimpered.

‘Who is punishing you? God?’

Beth continued to cry and hang her head.

‘If that was the case, which I don’t for one moment believe, why should Jack’s family be punished? He isn’t just the man you love, he is loved by his parents, brother, sister, aunts and uncles. Can you possibly imagine God is so vindictive he’d punish all of them for something you did?’

Still she cried and said nothing.

Rose thought for a moment how she should handle this. Had it been anyone else behaving this way she would have been tempted to tell them to go, as she didn’t like living under a black cloud. But she had grown to love Beth and she sensed that would only send her spiralling down even further.

‘There is only one thing to do, Beth, and that is to admit to me what you’ve done. I’ll be the one to judge if it is a heinous crime.’

‘How can I tell you? You’ll hate me and make me leave.’

‘Allow me to decide what I will do,’ Rose almost snarled at the girl. ‘But I warn you, Beth, fond though I am of you, I do not have infinite patience, and I believe that once you’ve confessed what you did, you’ll feel better, and together we can decide what to do about it.’

Beth looked up at the older woman, her eyes full of pain. ‘I’m ashamed, that’s why I can’t tell you,’ she whispered.

At that Rose’s eyes prickled with tears. She moved to Beth and clasped her in her arms tightly. ‘Tell me, let it out, I can’t bear to see you burdened this way.’

It crossed Rose’s mind that if Beth had really done something wicked like killing someone, she couldn’t conceal that crime, but Beth was one of life’s gentle people, she wasn’t capable of physically hurting anyone.

‘I’m not Elizabeth Manning!’ Beth blurted out. ‘She was killed in a bomb blast in 1940. I was with her and survived. My real name is Mary Price. I took her identity.’

Rose had not expected anything like that and she felt her legs turn to jelly with shock. She needed to sit down, but she continued to hold Beth in her arms while she thought about how she should react.

‘I didn’t intend to take her name,’ Beth went on. ‘I had a head wound, and when I came round in the hospital at Charing Cross they called me Elizabeth because she had used her handbag to shield me. She had my bag with my identity card.’

‘All right, then.’ Rose took a deep breath. ‘Now, you have to tell me exactly what you did, and what you know about the real Elizabeth.’ She moved Beth onto a sofa and sat opposite her in an armchair. ‘From the beginning, how you met Elizabeth and your situation, the whole thing.’

Rose had always been good at picturing things she was told. And Beth told her story clearly, without trying to whitewash herself.

Bit by bit, the complete story unfolded.

As it did, Rose thought Beth had similar spirit and determination to some of the French heroines in the Great War who put themselves in real danger to help thwart the Germans.

There was no doubt in Rose’s mind that Mary had had the bleakest of childhoods, and that it continued even during her time in service, without a soul to turn to for comfort.

Yet Beth didn’t attempt to absolve her actions by revealing any of that.

She was not suffering from self-pity, just shame and fear of divine retribution.

To Rose it took courage to do what she had done.

She’d stepped into another woman’s shoes who had all the advantages she’d never had, she put on Elizabeth’s clothes and became her, and once she’d gone that far, who could blame her for seeing Elizabeth’s plan right through to the end?

A ferry to Ireland and claiming the house.

She had said almost in passing that before the bomb blast Elizabeth had begged Mary to come with her to Ireland, saying they could share clothes and a happy life. So in reality she hadn’t stolen anything, she’d just gone along with her friend’s plan.

‘I’ll have to give this a lot of thought,’ Rose said at length, knowing she couldn’t possibly praise the girl for her actions.

‘What you did is illegal, but I can’t for the life of me see any benefit to anyone in reporting it.

Elizabeth had no family and I suspect the law will do exactly the same as for someone who died without a will.

They will take the cottage and any money.

Plus they are likely to put you in prison for fraud.

That would be catastrophic. So now I want you to tell me about your childhood, mother and so on. So I can see the big picture.’

They paused for more tea and toast. Beth drank the tea but only nibbled at the toast. Her face was chalk-white and her hands were shaking. Rose had never felt so sorry for anyone as she did for Beth. But she knew she must do the right thing, and just maybe that wasn’t informing the authorities.

The story about her childhood, her weak, drunken mother and Ronnie, who had continually abused little Mary, was hard to hear.

Now Rose understood why Beth had seemed so scared when she thought she’d seen the man at the end of the road.

She listened to how Ruth, their neighbour, had tried to help the child, and her heart went out to that good woman.

But for her, little Mary Price would no doubt have been pushed into selling herself on the streets by the evil Ronnie.

Mary did well to take her advice to go into service and to try to rise above her hideous background.

Rose knew, as Beth got to the end of the story, that she couldn’t possibly hand her over to the police. A girl like her would never survive in prison.

Rose had always been of the opinion that a serious decision should only be taken after sleeping on it.

But it wouldn’t be fair to Beth to say she’d got to wait till tomorrow for the verdict, so, some shopping now, perhaps a glass of sherry to fortify them, and wait to see if that would show her the way forward.

Rose got up, poured two glasses of sherry and handed one to Beth. ‘Drink that and then let’s go out and buy a Christmas tree. You’ve been very brave and honest, but I need time to mull over where we go from here. It’s a nice crisp afternoon out there and sometimes a walk can clear the head.’

Beth did perk up a little once they set out.

Rose pointed out Christmas trees in windows, garlands on front doors, and said she thought they should go into Christ Church in the next day or two to see the Nativity scene, as that always made Christmas for her.

She wasn’t angry with Beth, but she wasn’t going to be too soft.

‘I always think that Christmas can be a healing time,’ she said.

‘It teaches us to appreciate family members, and to forgive and forget. When I was a girl the vicar in our church used to say at the midnight service on Christmas Eve, “Open your hearts and let the Christ Child in.” He meant of course to stop family disputes, to embrace those you’ve fallen out with, to value what you have.

But as a small girl I always imagined this fat little baby flying through the air to settle inside someone, like a real birth, only in reverse. ’

Rose was pleased to hear a tight little giggle from Beth, and when she turned to look at her, she saw the earlier dead look in her eyes had gone.

She reached out and patted Beth’s cheek.

‘That’s better, you’ve got through the worst part of this by owning up.

So let’s put it aside for now, and enjoy the spirit of Christmas all about us. ’