Secrets (58 page)

If she’d been able, Adele would have danced the polka around the ward, woken everyone up and rattled bedpans to celebrate. She wished she could catch a train home right now for by morning everyone in Winchelsea would be talking about the wonderful news. Michael was alive, and that was the most wonderful news she’d ever had.

In the last hour before it was time to wake the patients, while Joan laid up the early-morning tea trolley out in the corridor, Adele sat at the ward desk writing up the patients’ notes. But she stopped suddenly, thinking of Myles.

Two months after she’d met him again in Winchelsea, Adele got out the card he had given her and telephoned him. She wasn’t sure why, just a vague feeling they had some unfinished business. She fully expected that he’d have thought better of wanting to see her, and that he’d make some excuse. But she was wrong, he was very pleased to hear from her.

He took her to lunch at a French restaurant in Mayfair, a place he said had been very grand before the war. It wasn’t that grand any more because it had been damaged by bombs a couple of times and they’d been unable to redecorate it. Most of the diners were servicemen with their wives or girlfriends, and an old accordion player was attempting to create a romantic atmosphere.

Almost straight away Adele realized Myles wasn’t the ogre she’d come to think of him as. He was opinionated and inclined to be brusque, but he was also attentive and disarmingly truthful.

Over the simple but well-cooked meal he gave her his version of his relationship with Rose.

Rose had told Adele a great deal about it already, even as far as admitting the lies she had told him to persuade him to take her to London. In almost every detail Myles’s story was the same as Rose’s, except he was gallant enough to blame himself for encouraging her interest in him in the first place.

‘I should have known better,’ he said, sorrowfully shaking his head. ‘But I was lonely, Emily had been impossible since Michael was born, wild hysterics one minute, cold as ice the next, and Rose was so very lovely, and interested in me. That’s a huge draw to a man.’

He spoke about the first few weeks in London with Rose with obvious nostalgia. She had never been to London before and found even the most ordinary things like tram rides thrilling, and he clearly enjoyed taking a pretty and excited girl to see the sights. Adele got the idea that it was the first time in his life he’d really had any fun, yet at the same time he was terrified of the scandal which would ensue if he was found out. Adele had mixed feelings about his excuse that he finally became nervous when he realized Rose had no intention of standing on her own feet, despite all her claims that she expected nothing of him when they first left Rye.

‘I didn’t expect her to go into service, even though that looked like the best solution at the time,’ he said, his brow furrowed with a frown. ‘I knew she hadn’t the right mentality, she was too sparky and untamed. But she turned her nose up at every other kind of work, even a position in a select gown shop where they were offering a good salary and accommodation too.’

Rose had told Adele that she used to pretend that she’d been turned down for positions when she hadn’t even applied for them. She said she had no intention of getting any job because she thought that if Myles continued to support her, before long he would divorce his wife and marry her. Maybe that was wrong of her, but Adele supposed that in those days most women expected their man to keep them.

In her opinion, Myles had been something of a cad. Maybe Rose did use every trick in the book on him, especially sex, but the fact remained that he was a married man in his thirties, playing around with a seventeen-year-old who was still a virgin when he met her.

‘So did you know she was expecting me when you left her?’ Adele asked bluntly.

‘She claimed she was,’ he admitted candidly. ‘I chose not to believe her. When she didn’t come after me later to ask for money, I took that as confirmation I was right.’

Adele bristled at that. ‘You could have checked to see she was all right,’ she said accusingly. ‘Anything could have happened to her. You said you loved her! How could you be so callous?’

‘My wife and children were my priority,’ he said in that arrogant tone she remembered from the past.

‘But they weren’t a priority when you skipped off to London with Rose,’ Adele reminded him tartly. ‘I think you behaved very badly.’

‘I did,’ he said. ‘But I was in an impossible situation.’

Adele could see there was no point in arguing with him. He was typical of his class, believing that anyone further down the social scale didn’t really matter.

‘So what did you think when Rose turned up twenty years later and told you about me?’ she asked, wanting to move on to more recent events.

His face turned an even ruddier hue. ‘I was absolutely floored. It was bad enough to hear she had in fact had a child, but to find you were the girl I’d met at Emily’s, and Michael’s intended, was absolutely horrific. I panicked – you see, I didn’t imagine Rose intended to keep it to herself.’

‘So you paid her off? Weren’t you afraid if you paid her once, she’d keep coming back for more?’

His eyes flashed with anger then, reminding her of the night he’d slapped her. She thought it quite surprising he hadn’t attacked Rose.

‘Yes, I was. But I was more afraid of what she’d do if I didn’t pay up. How did you find out about the money though? Surely she didn’t admit that to you?’

All at once Adele felt an unexpected tug of loyalty for her mother. ‘Yes, she did,’ she said airily. ‘When we got together again after my grandmother was hurt in an air raid, she told me everything. I don’t approve of blackmail, but then I don’t approve of men who abandon a woman carrying their child either. And she had to get you to stop the marriage, didn’t she?’

Myles looked at Adele thoughtfully for some time before replying.

‘Yes. And I have to be completely frank with you about this, even if there had been no blood tie, at that time I would have done almost anything to stop Michael marrying you.’

Adele riled up at that. ‘The common girl from the marshes marrying a barrister’s son,’ she jeered. ‘Oh Mr Bailey, how terrible that would have been!’

Myles grimaced. ‘Right now I’d happily see Michael married to a street-walker rather than “missing, presumed dead”,’ he said sorrowfully. ‘But back then I wanted my son to have a wife out of the top drawer.’

‘What a bigot you were!’ Adele could not resist goading him. ‘After I’d run off up to London I used to try and comfort myself for losing Michael by telling myself I’d had a lucky escape not having you as a father-in-law.’

Adele didn’t want to see Myles ever again after that lunch. He’d told his side of the story with honesty, and she even felt that the nastier side of him she’d seen in Harrington House was a result of years of Emily’s impossible behaviour, but she thought he was what her grandmother called a ‘stuffed shirt’. He didn’t appear to feel any guilt at abandoning Rose. Nor had he lost any of his snobbishness.

But a few weeks passed and when he called her up and invited her out again, she thought she needed to get to know him better. This time she found him more mellow, far more interested in her than trying to impress on her that he was an important man. By the time they’d met for the fourth time a whole new picture of him was forming. His stern, cold and humourless manner was only a facade. Adele felt he’d been conditioned to form it by his domineering parents, a disastrous marriage, and his career. When he dropped it, she saw the real Myles Bailey, a kind and gentle man who loved his children and grandchildren, a man who hadn’t had much fun or laughter in his life, and precious little love.

It was during the fourth lunch that Adele found herself really liking him. He told her about some of the more amusing court cases he’d been involved with, and his dry humour and ability to re-create for her some of the more absurd characters he’d either defended or prosecuted had her almost crying with laughter.

‘No wonder Michael was so taken with you,’ he said with a smile. ‘You are such good company.’

Adele just laughed, she couldn’t think of any witty retort.

‘I look back at that day at the nurses’ home in Hastings as one of the lowest things I have ever done,’ he said, reaching out across the table and taking her hand. ‘I came expecting abuse, threats and goodness knows what else, I was prepared for an ugly scene. Yet you took my news with such quiet dignity, it took the wind right out of my sails.’

‘Don’t let’s talk about that,’ she said, embarrassed by the intensity in his voice.

‘But we have to talk about it, Adele,’ he insisted. ‘We can’t sweep it under the table. I have to admit I was relieved you made it so easy for me. But afterwards I felt such an absolute heel.’

‘Serves you right,’ she said, attempting humour to sidetrack him.

‘I got my comeuppance in a way I would never have expected,’ he said. ‘You see, even though I had to tell you I was your father, I didn’t have any paternal thoughts, not then. Those only came afterwards, when I thought how brave, selfless and gutsy you were, especially when I learned you’d cut yourself off from your grandmother too, and had never told her the real reason. That’s when it hit me. You were the sort of girl any father could be proud of. But how could I be proud? I’d had no influence on your character or upbringing, and I’d been so cruel to you! Do you understand what I mean?’

‘I think so,’ she said.

‘I wish I knew what to do,’ he said sorrowfully. ‘I was weighing it up this morning before we met, but I still don’t know what is right.’

Adele frowned, not knowing what he meant. ‘Do? You don’t have to do anything!’

Myles shook his head. ‘I think I do. I haven’t had anything to do with your last twenty-three years, but I’d like to have a part in your future.’

‘We can meet up from time to time,’ she said with a smile.

‘But I suspect that each time I see you I’ll want more than a casual lunch or dinner,’ he said.

Adele took her hands away from his and laughed to cover her sudden nervousness. ‘If we had anything more, people would talk,’ she said.

‘That’s my quandary,’ he admitted. ‘I want more and I think I ought to publicly admit you are my daughter.’

‘You mustn’t do that!’ she said in alarm. ‘Imagine what a can of worms that would open up! Aside from your children and Emily’s feelings, there’s my grandmother’s too. She would work out immediately how Rose got her house, and that would just about finish her off.’

‘But it’s you who should count,’ he insisted. ‘Not them. I failed to do the right thing years ago. I think I should do it now.’

‘No. Let it be,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m really touched you feel you want to do that. But just hearing you say so in private is enough. There’s been too much hurt in our families already.’

‘You are right in that respect,’ he sighed. ‘But if Michael is found to be alive, I will surely have to reveal it to him. After what he must have been through, don’t you think we owe him the truth about why you dropped him?’

Adele had not thought about what Myles had said that day until now. Maybe that was mostly because it seemed all hope of Michael being found alive was gone, but also because her life had become so full. She was no longer a recluse in her off-duty time, she had dozens of friends apart from Joan and often went home with them to meet their families.

She often visited old patients at home too to see how they were getting on, and she was studying as well because she intended to get a midwifery diploma. Dances, going to the pictures or the theatre, and visits back to Rye when she got a couple of days off, all left very little free time to brood about words or deeds in the past.

She still wore Michael’s ring about her neck, he’d never left her heart. But because she thought he was gone for good, she’d tucked memories of him away and had got on with her life.

But sitting here in the quiet ward, watching the first rays of daylight trying to filter through the blackout, all those feelings she had for Michael were struggling through too. She could see his face before her, those dark blue eyes, the long lashes and his lips curling up at the corners as if permanently smiling.

She could also hear Myles insisting that if Michael was alive, he must tell him that she was his sister.

Adele remembered only too clearly the sheer horror she’d felt when Myles had told her that shocking news. She had had three years to get used to it, yet even now it still made her feel tainted. She had no doubt Michael would feel exactly the same.

Things had been further complicated by Emily, Rose and Honour becoming such good friends. In the past year they’d spent a lot of time together. What would be more natural than for the two families to want to join forces to celebrate when Michael came home?

Yet Emily and Honour would be secretly hoping that he and Adele could patch up whatever their differences were. On the other side, Adele, Myles and Rose would all be trying to stand aloof and hide their destructive secret.

Michael would be right in the middle of the two camps, and he’d be completely confused by conflicting signals unless he was told the truth.

Yet even if by some miracle he could accept it, how would the pair of them know how to behave with each other? Adele couldn’t imagine ever being able to hug him the way a real sister would. Surely just an innocent brush against him would make her feel guilty? They’d be nervous of each other and the fact that their secret had the power to hurt so many other people.

Presumably Myles would’ve been told about his son at the same time Emily was, and Adele thought perhaps she should ring him later and arrange to meet again so they could discuss all this.

‘But he’s alive,’ she reminded herself, for surely nothing should detract from that fantastic miracle. ‘We should just celebrate that for now, and not ponder on what to do when he gets home.’

As Adele sat at the ward desk, Myles was in the stable yard at The Grange, his home in Alton. He was filling his car up with the last of the petrol he’d stored in case of an emergency. He had woken at five, too thrilled by the news about Michael he’d received the previous evening to sleep any longer. He hadn’t telephoned Emily then because of the late hour, and so he decided that today, instead of taking the train to London to work, he would drive over to Winchelsea so they could celebrate together.