The Girl on the Beach E-Book

Mary Nichols

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Seitenzahl: 503

Beschreibung

Julie Monday, abandoned by her mother and raised in a children's home, enjoys a rare moment of happiness when at the age of eight she visits the Essex seaside and meets eleven-year-old Harry Walker. They spend a happy few hours together, but at the end of the afternoon, she must return to the Foundling's Hospital, and Harry goes home to his family. Ten years later, they meet again. Fated to be together, they marry just before the outbreak of the Second World War. But it's now 1939, Harry has enlisted in the Royal Air Force, and Julie must face the blitz in wartime London alone with their son. Travelling back from work one day, Julie is caught in the chaos of a direct hit. Rescued from the destroyed air-raid shelter, but injured and with severe memory loss, Julie is given a new identity as Eve Seaton. But it is not easy to become a different person; plagued with disturbing flashes of memory that she doesn't understand, forgetting her former life as Julie Monday proves impossible. She must make a decision: should she make a new life for herself as Eve, or struggle to recover the pieces of a shattered identity?

Leseprobe

The Girl on the Beach

MARY NICHOLS

To my husband, Bryn, whose D-Day adventures I have ‘borrowed’

Contents

Title PageDedicationPrologueChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenAbout the AuthorBy Mary NicholsCopyright

Prologue

Summer 1926

‘Where is that dratted girl? Julie Monday, come here at once or we shall go without you.’

The last thing Julie wanted was to be left behind. The Foundling Hospital’s outings were few and far between and this one promised to be the best yet. They were going to the seaside for a whole day and the weather was glorious. Breaking all the rules, she dashed down the stairs and ran pell-mell along the corridor to join her excited peers who were standing in line to board the fleet of motor charabancs that were to take them to Southend, girls and boys separately of course, each bus being looked after by a member of staff.

‘Sorry, Miss Paterson.’

Grace Paterson, thin and stiff as a rake and with a back to match, had scraped-back grey hair and a severe expression, but all the children knew she was soft as butter inside and loved her, in as far as they were capable of understanding what love was. Few of them had known such a thing outside the orphanage or had any idea what a family home was like, although, to give them their due, the administrators, teachers and household staff did their best. The children all knew, because it was hammered into them every day of their lives, that they were the objects of charity and needed to be suitably grateful.

Julie, being eight years old, was aware of this but it could not subdue her natural exuberance. How someone who had been in the institution since birth had come to have such an independent spirit and capacity for mischief, neither Miss Paterson nor any of the other members of staff understood. According to the meticulous notes made on her admission, she had been found on the doorstep by one of the kitchen staff arriving for work at six o’clock one morning in July 1918. Wrapped in a thin blanket she was very underweight even for a newborn baby, and this one, according to the doctor who examined her, was about a week old. There had been a note pinned to the blanket. ‘Husband killed in France. Can’t cope no more.’ A woman, who had recently given birth, had been pulled from the Thames that night and it had been conjectured that this had been Julie’s mother, though there was no proof.

And so she had become one of hundreds of orphan children, the majority of them born of unmarried mothers, looked after by the home. Discipline was strict and punishment harsh, but the children were adequately clothed and fed and given the rudiments of an education. Besides the three Rs and religious instruction, they learnt a little of history and geography and, as they progressed, the boys learnt a trade and the girls learnt to be domestic servants. As soon as they were big enough to understand what was expected of them, they were given their allotted tasks: making their own beds, dusting, sweeping the floor, polishing, laundry work and helping in the kitchen. The bigger ones helped look after the smaller ones and so they became self-reliant at an early age, but at the same time remaining ignorant of matters the ordinary slum child grew up knowing: about having babies and learning to survive.

Julie was constantly being made to stand in the corner of the classroom or being sent to the governor for some misdemeanour or other, where she was either caned or locked in a cupboard for a few hours. Even though it hurt, she preferred the cane; the darkness and silence of the cupboard terrified her – she would do anything not to have to endure that punishment but somehow never managed to escape it. Ever since the news of the outing had broken two weeks before, she had been a model of rectitude, determined nothing would stop her from going. She had so nearly spoilt it all at the last minute by going to the sickroom to see her friend, Elsie, who was too ill to make the trip. ‘I’ll tell you all about it when I come back,’ she had promised.

Miss Paterson ushered her onto the last coach, where the girls were crammed three to a seat intended for two, found her own seat near the driver, and the vehicle rolled away through the gates and onto the road. It was really happening. They were really going to the seaside. Some began to eat the small packet of sandwiches they had been given for their dinner, others were sick into the brown paper bags thoughtfully provided for them. Julie looked out of the window at the busy streets. There were shoppers hurrying along with baskets on their arms, children skipping, a dog tied to a lamp post, a gentleman alighting from a cab. A black cat sunned itself on a window ledge, which she took to be a sign of good luck. After a time the streets were left behind and they were in the open country. Trees, fields, farm buildings, villages, cows, pigs and horses passed before her enchanted gaze, and then they were in a town again and there was the sea. A huge cheer went up from the occupants of the bus as it drew to a stop behind the rest of the fleet.

Julie had never seen the sea before. Grey and greeny-blue in patches, it was vast, stretching away in the distance to join up with the sky. There was a ship on the horizon, its two funnels belching smoke. It hardly seemed to be moving but she supposed it was going somewhere. It was not until she tumbled out with everyone else and was herded along the road that she saw the beach. Here was golden sand and hundreds of people enjoying themselves. There were donkeys being trotted up and down with children on their backs and kiosks selling ice cream. There were pools of water in which tiny children paddled. Bigger children were playing cricket or simply throwing a ball from hand to hand. Adults and children alike walked along the water’s edge, laughing as it whooshed up to cover their feet and then was sucked back again. Further out heads bobbed up and down.

Julie stood and gaped, while those about her argued about what they wanted to do first. The older ones were all for going on the pier, where they hoped the threepenny piece they had been given to spend could be changed into pennies which would be multiplied in the slot machines. Miss Paterson remonstrated that this was gambling and wicked and she could not allow it, much to their disappointment. Others wanted an ice cream cornet and hurried to buy one from a man standing beside a tricycle with a large container on the front of which was written ‘Stop me and buy one’ in flowery script. Nearby was a tall, narrow, tent-like structure surrounded by an audience of children all agape at the antics of a puppet show. ‘It’s Punch and Judy,’ Johnny Easter said. He had not been in the orphanage long and knew these things. Julie’s group settled down on the sand to watch it.

She was soon bored with that and the sea was inviting her, so she wandered off on her own, right down to the water’s edge. The first thing she did was to take off the starched white cap she wore and stuff it into her skirt pocket, the second was to sit down and remove her black button shoes and stockings. She carried them with her as she gingerly stepped into the water and felt the wet sand oozing between her toes. It tickled and she laughed aloud. A larger-than-usual wave rolled up and she had to run backwards to keep her dress dry. Other girls had tucked their skirts into their knickers and were venturing in up to their knees, and, greatly daring, Julie did the same with her brown cotton uniform. The water struck cold but she soon became used to it and turned to paddle along the shoreline, dodging the bigger waves as she went. So absorbed was she, she did not notice she had left the crowded part of the beach behind and was almost alone. Alone except for a boy who came up out of the sea like Neptune, dripping water, although she was sure Neptune was never dressed in a blue-and-white-striped bathing costume that clung ever so closely to his body.

‘Hallo,’ he said.

‘Hallo,’ she answered.

‘Are you lost?’

‘No. Just walking.’

‘Where to?’ He had dark auburn hair and soft amber eyes. She guessed he was about the same age as Johnny Easter and that was twelve, and though he was by no means fat, he had more flesh on him than Johnny.

‘Nowhere. I just felt like it. The sea’s lovely, isn’t it?’

‘Grand.’ He walked up the beach a little way to where he had left a towel and a pile of clothes and sat down to rub his hair which sprang into little curls as it dried. She went and stood over him.

‘What’s over there?’ She nodded across the water.

‘Belgium and Holland, I should think.’ He was vigorously towelling himself.

‘Oh.’

‘Haven’t you got a towel to dry your feet?’

‘No.’

‘You can borrow mine if you like.’

‘Thank you kindly.’ She sat down beside him and took the towel he offered.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Julie Monday.’

He laughed. ‘Monday. You mean like the day of the week?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s a strange name.’

‘It’s on account of I was taken in at the hospital on a Monday in July, so I’m Julie Monday.’

‘What hospital?’

‘The Coram Foundling Hospital.’

‘Never heard of it. Where is it?’

‘In Bloomsbury, but we’re going to move to the country soon.’

‘Will you like that?’

She shrugged. ‘Dunno, do I? It’ll still be the Foundling Hospital, still an orphanage.’

‘Are you an orphan?’

‘I think so.’

‘You only think so. Don’t you know for sure?’

‘I was left on the doorstep when I was a baby. They told me my father died in the war and my mother threw herself in the river and was drowned.’

The information had been imparted to her in a matter-of-fact way one day when she had had the temerity to ask why she didn’t have a mother and father and she had accepted it philosophically. None of the other children had mothers and fathers, or if they did, they had no contact with them.

‘How old are you now?’

‘Eight.’

‘My sister’s eight but she’s bigger than you.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Harold Walker – most people call me Harry.’

‘Do you live here by the sea?’

‘No, we’re down for the week, staying in a boarding house. We live in Islington.’

‘Who’s “we”?’

‘Me, my dad and mum, my brother Roland, who’s ten, and my little sister, Mildred.’

‘It must be nice to have a mother and father,’ she said a little wistfully.

‘Yes, I suppose it is. I never thought of it before.’

‘And a brother and a sister.’

He laughed. ‘Sometimes it is, but sometimes they are a pest, particularly Millie, that’s why I like to come down here and swim by myself.’ He paused. ‘How about you? What brought you here?’

‘We came in a lot of charabancs with our teachers. They were paid for by Sir Bertram Chalfont. We had thruppence to spend too.’

‘Sir Bertram!’ he exclaimed. ‘I know him. My father is production manager at his factory in Southwark.’

‘I saw him once, when he came to inspect us. He had bushy ginger whiskers and grey hair. He smiled a lot.’

‘That’s him.’ He was putting a shirt and trousers on over his costume as he spoke.

‘I suppose I had better be going back,’ she said, standing up and pulling her skirt out of her drawers and shaking it out. It was sadly crumpled and, in spite of her care, stained with seawater.

He picked up his shoes and socks. ‘I’ll walk with you.’

They strolled along the water’s edge in no hurry. He stopped and picked up a round flat stone and skimmed it over the water, making it bounce several times before it disappeared.

‘That’s clever,’ she said. ‘How do you do it?’

‘It’s a knack.’ He selected another pebble and handed it to her. ‘Here, you try. Keep the angle low.’

Her missile failed completely and disappeared under the waves. He showed her again, with the same result, and thus they proceeded back towards the town, skimming pebbles as they went. She was happy as a sandboy and did not notice the beach was emptying until they returned to where the Punch and Judy had been. The little tent had gone and so had her classmates.

‘Where is everyone?’ she asked, looking about her in dismay.

‘I expect they’ve gone for their tea.’

‘Nobody said anything about having tea.’ She crammed her cap back on her head and scrambled into her stockings and shoes, though her feet were covered with sand, and began running up and down looking for someone she knew, growing more and more panicky. He followed and stopped her by taking hold of her arm.

‘Don’t go off half-cock. Stand still and think. Were you told where to meet if you became separated?’

‘No. We weren’t supposed to be separated. They’ve been and gone home without me. Oh, what am I to do?’ She was very frightened but determined not to cry in front of him. Crying was frowned on by her teachers and, according to them, was a sign of weakness and achieved nothing. ‘I can’t walk all that way.’

‘Don’t be silly, of course you can’t. Can you remember where the coaches were parked?’

‘Up there somewhere.’ She pointed to the promenade. ‘They were in a long line.’

‘I don’t think they are allowed to stay there all day. I’ve seen coaches parked on a field on the edge of town. That’s where they’ll be. Come on.’ He took her hand and obediently she went.

He was right. The field was full of charabancs, both motorised and horse-drawn, some of them crowded with noisy children. He led her from one to the next until she spotted Miss Paterson standing by the vehicle in which they had arrived and looking about her with a mixture of worry and exasperation. When she saw Julie the exasperation took over from the worry. ‘Where have you been, Julie Monday?’ she demanded, grabbing her by the shoulder and propelling her towards the coach. ‘I was about to report you missing to the police and what a to-do that would have caused. Get in your seat and let us be off.’

Half in, half out, Julie screwed herself round to look back at Harry. ‘Goodbye,’ she called. ‘Thank you.’

He lifted his hand in salute and turned away. Julie was found a seat right next to Miss Paterson. The bus lurched and bumped over the uneven field and they were on their way, back to the city and the routine of life in the orphanage. And as far as Julie was concerned, back to her punishment.

‘Who was that boy?’ Miss Paterson demanded.

‘He said his name was Harry. I forget his other name.’

‘Where and how did you meet him?’

‘Down on the beach. He was swimming. I couldn’t find you. He helped me.’

‘You foolish girl. Don’t you know better than to talk to strange boys?’

‘Why not?’

‘Anything could have happened. You do not know him. He could be wicked, degenerate …’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Someone who knows nothing of decency and proper behaviour, an evil person.’

‘He’s not evil. He was kind to me and helped me when I was lost. He lent me his towel to dry my feet.’

‘Merciful heaven! What have you been up to?’

‘Nothing, Miss Paterson. I went paddling and my feet were wet and there was sand between my toes.’

‘Do you mean to tell me you removed your stockings?’

‘I wanted to paddle and I couldn’t do that with my stockings on, could I?’

‘Don’t be cheeky, miserable rebellious girl. You were expressly told not to wander off. Have you learnt nothing of obedience? You will have to be punished. What a sorry end to what could have been a lovely day.’

‘It was a lovely day,’ she said, aware that everyone else on the coach was looking at her, goggle-eyed at her temerity. ‘I made a new friend.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t suppose you will ever see that boy again. And a good thing too.’

‘I know,’ was said with a resigned sigh.

‘I shall have to report your disgraceful behaviour to Mr Carruthers.’

‘Oh no, please, Miss Paterson. He’ll make me go in the cupboard …’

‘You should have thought of that before. Now be silent. I have had enough of you for one day.’

Julie lapsed into silence, but it was not a silence of shame or remorse, it was a silence of happy recollections. Nothing they could do to her could stifle those.

‘I met a girl on the beach today,’ Harry said, after the waitress had served them all with roast chicken, stuffing and several dishes of vegetables, and left them to their meal.

‘Don’t you think you are a little young to be picking up girls, son?’ his father queried with a smile, one eyebrow raised.

‘She was lost.’

‘Oh, you mean a little girl,’ he said with relief. ‘What did you do?’

‘I helped her find her party. She’d come down in a charabanc from the Coram Foundling Hospital. I thought hospitals were for ill people.’

‘So they are, but originally the word had a wider meaning and the Foundling Hospital is a very old institution.’

‘She said she had been left on the doorstep when she was a baby. They told her that her father was killed in the war and her mother threw herself into the river. The hospital called her Julie Monday because she arrived on a Monday in July.’

‘Poor child,’ his mother murmured. ‘How dreadful for her.’

‘She didn’t seem unhappy.’

‘No, I believe the children are well looked after and she would not have known any other kind of life, would she?’ his father said, frowning at Roly and Millie who had paused with mouths agape to look from one to the other in curiosity.

‘No, I suppose not. The funny thing was she said the outing had been paid for by Sir Bertram.’

‘I am not surprised. Sir Bertram is a good man. I believe he has recently been appointed to the Board of Governors of the hospital. It is a testing time for the institution. The present building has been sold and they are looking for new premises.’

‘She said they were going to move to the country.’

‘You seem to have had quite a long conversation with her,’ his mother said. ‘I am surprised a little girl like that was so articulate.’

‘She wasn’t that little. She said she was eight. She had walked the whole length of the beach and could not find her way back.’ That was stretching the truth, he knew, but it sounded better than saying he had simply offered to walk with her. And he had helped her to find her charabanc.

‘Your good deed for the day, eh?’ his father said.

Harry grinned and attacked his roast chicken with gusto. Swimming always gave him a good appetite and their landlady was an exceptionally good cook. He found himself wondering what Julie was having for her supper and if she had been punished. The teacher, or whatever she was, had grabbed her a bit roughly and almost lifted her off the ground when she pushed her into the charabanc. She was a lively girl, full of curiosity, and not a bit sorry for herself; he had no doubt she would survive.

Chapter One

Summer 1936

How Julie had come to be chosen to work in Sir Bertram’s grand Maida Vale home, she never knew, but at the age of fourteen, when the orphanage decided her education was complete, she had been packed off to take up a position as a chambermaid, for which she received her board and lodging, her uniform and the sum of twenty-four pounds a year, paid monthly. Her job was to strip and make beds, empty chamber pots and wash them out, clean the bathroom, sweep and dust the bedrooms and the upper landings, shake out the mats and, in the winter, clean out and relight the fire in Her Ladyship’s boudoir, carrying the coal up from the cellar in a large scuttle, which had to be replenished during the day. There were fireplaces in the bedrooms but fires were only lit in them if someone was ill. When that was done, she was expected to help with the laundry.

It had taken her a long time to settle down. It was not that the work was too onerous, she had been schooled to expect that, but she missed the regimented atmosphere of the home and her friends. From sleeping in a crowded dormitory, she found herself, for the first time in her life, sleeping in a tiny attic room alone. There were no whispered secrets after lights out, no one to confide in, no opportunity to play. And the other servants, a cook, a kitchen maid and a parlour maid, looked down on her because of where she had come from. Coram orphans were almost always bastards, so they said.

She had been there two years when the nursery maid left and she was promoted to the domain of Bernard, who was four, and the new baby, Emily. They were Sir Bertram’s second family; he had two grown-up sons by his first wife who had died some years before. The children had a nurse, Miss Thomas, who was far superior to a nursery maid, a distinction Julie soon learnt. The nurse’s job was to look after the children, Julie’s was to keep the nursery suite clean and tidy, washing up after their meals and doing the laundry.

It was the laundry that occupied her one Friday in the summer of 1936. It was a fine sunny day with a stiff breeze. She finished the washing, mangled it and took it out to hang on the line at the bottom of the garden, well out of sight of the house. She was struggling with a sheet in the wind when it was taken out of her hands and thrown over the line. She looked round to see Ted Austen grinning at her. He was the family chauffeur and full of his own importance because he could drive a motor car and wore jodhpurs and a peaked cap when on duty. She did not like him. He thought he was God’s gift to the opposite sex and was always trying to touch her. She tried ignoring him but he grabbed her round the waist and waltzed her behind the sheet, where he put his arms about her and tried to kiss her.

‘Leave off, Ted,’ she said, struggling to free herself.

‘Leave off? You don’t mean that. You’ve been making sheep’s eyes at me for weeks, don’t think I haven’t noticed.’

‘I have not.’ She was not quite sure what ‘sheep’s eyes’ meant, but she could guess. ‘Why on earth would I do that?’

‘Because you’d like a bit of slap and tickle, and as you aren’t half bad-looking, I thought I’d oblige. Like this, see.’ He brought his mouth down to hers at the same time as he fumbled for her skirt in an effort to lift it. She tried to beat him off, and though he was obliged to lift his head to take a firmer hold of her, she was no match for him. She felt his warm hand on her thigh above her stockings and screamed and kept on screaming until he dropped her skirt and clapped his hand over her mouth. ‘Shut up, can’t you? Do you want the whole household down on us?’ This had been her intention, but she realised how useless that would be when he added, ‘They won’t believe you, you know, not when I tell them you came onto me. You’re from the orphanage and that means you’re up for anything—’

He was suddenly hauled off her and she found herself free and Ted struggling with a strange man who had come in the back gate from the mews. Before her horrified gaze, the stranger delivered a blow that sent Ted reeling to the ground with blood pouring from his nose. ‘You’ll be sorry for that, Julie Monday,’ he muttered, scrambling to his feet. ‘No one ever messes with me and gets away with it, and I mean no one. You’ll pay for it, see if you don’t.’ And, clapping his handkerchief to his nose, he disappeared through the gate to the mews garage where the car was kept.

The stranger turned to her. ‘Julie Monday,’ he said, laughing. ‘It is you.’

She was mystified. ‘Yes, but—’

‘You don’t remember me, do you? I’m Harry Walker. We met at the seaside. Goodness, how many years ago was that? It must be ten at least.’

‘Harry!’ She stared up at the young man who faced her. He was tall, well built and well dressed. His auburn hair was ruffled and his tie askew, but when she looked closer, she recognised the amber eyes and the cheerful smile and her own eyes shone with delight. ‘I never thought I’d see you again.’

‘Nor I you. How have you been? Are you working here?’

‘Yes, in the nursery. This is Sir Bertram Chalfont’s house.’

‘I know. Do you like it?’

‘It’s all right, I suppose. What do you do?’

‘I work in Chalfont’s factory with my father, but I’m studying for an engineering qualification at night school.’

‘How did you come to be here?’

‘I was passing on my way home from a football match and heard your cries for help. I’m jolly glad I did. Are you all right?’

‘Yes, I am now.’

‘Will you report him?’

‘There’d be no point. They wouldn’t believe me, especially Lady Chalfont wouldn’t. Ted Austen is one of her favourites on account of he kowtows to her, and I daren’t go to Sir Bertram. I shall just have to keep out of his way.’

‘Mind you do. Fellows like him are a menace.’

She didn’t want to talk about Ted Austen. ‘I can’t believe it’s you.’

‘I can’t take it in either.’ He stood looking at her. The coltish child, all arms and legs, had become a handsome young woman with a superb figure, due no doubt to the better diet she received under Sir Bertram’s roof. Her wispy blond hair had grown and thickened and was now confined under a white cap similar to the one she had worn as an eight-year-old. He was curious about her. What had her life been like since he last saw her? How had she come to be working for Sir Bertram? ‘I say, we ought to meet again. I’d like to hear what you’ve been doing. Catch up, you know. Do you have any time off?’

‘I have a day off a week.’

‘What do you do then?’

‘If the weather is fine, I usually go for a walk, sometimes in Regent’s Park, sometimes Hyde Park.’

‘And if it’s wet?’

She shrugged. ‘If it’s a Sunday, I stay in my room or find a café. If it’s a weekday, I go to the library or wander round a museum, usually the Victoria and Albert. Sometimes, if I’ve got a few pence, I go to a matinee at the pictures – anywhere out of the rain.’

‘I can’t meet you in the week but what about a weekend? That’s if you want to.’

‘Oh, yes, I’d like that. I’m off this Sunday.’

‘Good. I’ll meet you at two o’clock by Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park.’ He combed his fingers through his hair and straightened his tie. ‘If you’re sure you’ll be all right, I’ll be off. See you Sunday.’

As soon as he had gone she felt vulnerable again and hurriedly pegged out the washing, keeping a watch out in case Ted returned. Once safely back in the nursery suite, she collapsed onto her bed. Miss Thomas had taken the children for a walk in the park and, for a moment, she could relax, though there was a pile of ironing to do. Unlike the hospital, where she had to use flat irons heated on a stove, Sir Bertram’s house boasted an electric iron.

Ted Austen’s assault had shaken her up and she was worried about his threats and wondered what he would do, but that was soon set aside in dreaming about Harry Walker. He was grown-up now and really handsome, but underneath she sensed he was still the same boy who had befriended her so long ago. Fancy him remembering her! It was the name, of course. Everyone remembered that.

She hoped Sunday would be fine, she was looking forward to meeting and talking to him. She wouldn’t tell anyone about it; she was sure it would be forbidden. She remembered a homily she had received from Lady Chalfont when she first arrived, something about not having followers. She had not understood what a follower was and had not dared to ask, but since then she had discovered her predecessor had been dismissed for having a follower, which she learnt had been a boyfriend who took her out on her day off and got her in the family way. Harry wasn’t a boyfriend, he was simply an acquaintance, but he was meeting her on her day off, so it had to be kept a secret. But she was glowing with it and went about her work with renewed vigour.

Her prayers for good weather were answered. Dressed in the only non-uniform dress she possessed – a calf-length blue cotton printed with tiny white flowers – a woollen cardigan and a tiny felt hat perched on the side of her head and held by a hatpin, she set off for Hyde Park. The park was crowded with people enjoying their Sunday afternoon, strolling about, playing ball, swimming in the Serpentine, riding horses along Rotten Row or listening to the soapbox speakers who vied with each other to see who could shout the loudest for their particular hobby horse. She hardly noticed them as she hurried to the rendezvous, searching out the young man she looked upon as her saviour. And there he was, dressed in a brown suit and a bowler hat, which he doffed as she approached. The gesture made her laugh; people weren’t usually that polite to her. ‘You came, then,’ he said.

‘Why wouldn’t I?’

‘You might have thought I was as bad as that fellow who attacked you.’

‘I know you are not. He’s a nasty piece of work and you’re … you’re nice.’

He laughed aloud. This young lady, pert though she was, had no idea of the rules of flirtation, of saying one thing and meaning another, of playing hard to get. He must be careful not to spoil her simple faith. ‘Nice, am I? How do you know that?’

‘Because I do. You’re Harry.’ As if that answered his question.

‘What would you like to do now?’

‘Anything. Let’s walk and talk. I want to hear all about your life. Do you still live with you parents and brother and sister?’

They turned to walk side by side, though neither seemed to bother about the direction in which they were going. ‘You remembered that?’

‘Yes, I remember everything. You see, that was a grand day, the day we met, and I’ve never forgotten it.’

‘Me neither. Were you punished when you got back?’

‘I had to go in the cupboard for a whole day. It was dark and full of spiders and I could hear the mice in the skirting. I was frightened but I kept telling myself it didn’t matter because they couldn’t take the day away from me, could they? Not once I’d had it.’

‘No.’ She was a strange mixture of naivety and wisdom, half woman, half child, which appealed to him. ‘Did you often have to go in the cupboard?’

‘Not often. Only for very bad deeds.’

‘What was so bad about paddling in the sea?’

‘It wasn’t the paddling, it was talking to you and letting you see me with my legs all bare.’

He laughed. ‘Did they know you also had your skirt in your bloomers?’

‘No, thank goodness, but it’s not fair of you to remind me of that. I didn’t know any better.’

‘You do now?’

‘Oh, yes, I had it drummed into me about behaving with decorum.’ She laughed. ‘I think I am not behaving with decorum now.’

‘Who cares?’

Julie certainly did not. She took his arm and quizzed him about himself. She learnt that he had passed a scholarship to go to grammar school and could have gone on to college but decided he wanted to learn on the job and go to night school, so he had been given a position at the Chalfont Engineering Works. ‘We make radios,’ he said. ‘When I get my qualifications, I’ll be promoted.’

‘You will be a great man.’

‘Nice of you to say so.’

They carried on walking and talking. She learnt his brother Roland was at Cambridge University and learning to fly, which he fully expected to come in useful in the event of war. Already there was a civil war in Spain and he was convinced, like many others, that it would happen to the rest of Europe before long, what with Herr Hitler striding about making speeches and promising the German people the earth. Millie was walking out with a young man she had met at a ball and would no doubt soon be announcing her engagement. His mother was already getting very excited about it.

Julie responded with tales of her life in the Foundling Hospital which had taken over a convent in Surrey soon after they met. ‘Then last year they went to a new place in Berkhamsted,’ she said. ‘I used to meet some of the girls sometimes, but I’ve lost touch with all of them now.’

‘Have you been at Sir Bertram’s long?’

‘Four years. Ever since I left the Coram.’

‘Do you like it?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s all right, I suppose, though what I’ll do when the children no longer need a nursery, I don’t know. Bernard is going to be sent away to boarding school but Emily will be educated at home, so I’ve been told. She is to have a governess.’

‘I expect you will easily find another position. Sir Bertram will give you a good reference, I am sure.’

‘If I don’t blot my copybook.’

It was easy to talk to him. He listened with grave attention and broke in now and again with a question or a comment and the afternoon flew by. He escorted her home but she stopped him at the end of the street. ‘Leave me here. They mustn’t see me with you.’

‘Why not? Can’t you do what you like on your day off?’

‘I’m not allowed followers.’

He laughed. ‘I’m not following you, I’m right beside you.’

‘Yes, but the girl before me was dismissed for it. He got her in the family way.’

‘I wouldn’t do that, Julie, I promise you.’

‘I know, but they wouldn’t understand.’

They arranged to meet again the following Sunday and she hurried back to her mundane routine, wondering if Harry constituted a follower. She had better be careful.

She was careful, so was he, and they continued to see each other week after week, through summer and into winter, when she appeared in a brown tweed coat she had bought from a second-hand stall on the market. They would walk in Hyde Park or visit the zoo in Regent’s Park. Sometimes they sheltered from the elements in museums and picture galleries which contributed to her further education, as did the arrival of the Jarrow marchers in the capital, one pouring wet Sunday in October. The Jarrow shipbuilding yard had been closed down the year before, throwing thousands of men out of work and causing real hardship. They had marched nearly three hundred miles, singing to the accompaniment of a mouth organ band and staying with sympathisers on the way. It was the feat of the walk by hungry ill-dressed men that attracted the attention of the populace, not the cause for which they marched, and they achieved little. It made Julie realise how lucky she was to have a job – however hard and ill paid – and a comfortable home.

Once they went into Westminster Abbey out of the rain and she stood looking down at the grave of the unknown soldier. ‘That could have been my father,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I think I’ll pretend it was.’

He smiled and squeezed her arm. ‘Why not?’

They discussed the death of King George the previous January and the succession of Edward VIII, wondering what sort of king he would make. In the event, he was not king for long because he abdicated in December in order to marry the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson, who was not acceptable to most of the British public, certainly not to its religious leaders. He became the Duke of Windsor and his brother became George VI and, in the summer of 1937, there was a coronation. Harry and Julie stood in the street with everyone else to watch the King and Queen pass in the great golden state coach, followed by the little princesses in another coach and a whole string of cars containing the great and the good. Everyone was cheering and waving little flags.

Very occasionally she was allowed an evening off and they went to the cinema to laugh at Charlie Chaplin and the Keystone Cops and saw newsreels of happenings in Europe. The Spanish Civil War still raged, Hitler had tested his muscles by occupying the demilitarised area of the Rhineland and no one had tried to stop him, and Mussolini was becoming a force to be reckoned with in Italy – all very worrying to the politicians, but such distant happenings did not encroach on Julie’s life and Harry did not want to spoil her happiness by telling her of his own misgivings.

Life, for Julie, took on a new dimension; her horizons widened. She was vibrantly alive and instead of feeling isolated she felt part of it all, especially when she was with Harry, whom she idolised. She didn’t want it to end and neither did he, but end it did. And it was all the fault of Ted Austen.

She always did her best to avoid him, but sometimes they met in the kitchen or the garden and he would grin at her and tell her he had not forgotten the beating he had endured on her behalf and that it had to be paid for. She would be sorry. ‘Not as sorry as you if you touch me again,’ she retorted on one occasion.

‘Oh, and who is to stop me?’

‘The same person who stopped you before.’ She knew as soon as she spoke she had made a grave mistake. He did not say anything, but he was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

The next Sunday, returning from her meeting with Harry, she was summoned to Lady Chalfont’s sitting room. She went with some trepidation, but with no idea what was to come.

‘I believe you have been meeting a young man on your afternoon off,’ Her Ladyship said. ‘You know it is expressly forbidden for the servants to have followers, especially servants like you whose family background no one can know. I was always sceptical about employing you but Sir Bertram said we should give a Foundling inmate an opportunity to make good. And this is the sorry outcome.’

Julie stood and stared. It was so unexpected she didn’t know what to say. ‘Well, miss, what have you to say for yourself? Do you deny it?’

‘No, My Lady.’ Julie had been taught always to be truthful, and in any case, denying Harry would be like a betrayal.

‘I cannot have you contaminating my innocent children and setting a bad example to the rest of the staff. Go to your room and pack your bags. You may stay there for the rest of today and tonight. You will not see the children or do anything for them, do you understand? You will leave first thing in the morning and take nothing you did not bring with you when you first came here or buy with your own money. I am prepared to pay the wages owed to you and that is being generous.’

‘But where am I to go?’

‘That is not my concern. You should have thought about that before you embarked on this affair. Go to your young man, seeing as you put him before your job here. You will probably discover he has feet of clay, just as you have.’

Julie turned away. She did not think Lady Chalfont knew Harry’s name and she would not divulge it. Harry was employed by Sir Bertram, as was his father. Going to Harry would put them at risk.

She trudged up to her room at the top of the house and shut herself in. It was here, where no one could see or hear her, she gave way to despair and howled with misery, frustration and anger, mostly anger. She had no doubt who had betrayed her and wondered how anyone could be so vindictive.

When she had no more tears left, she stopped crying and scrubbed at her eyes. It was done now, but where could she go? She dragged her carpet bag down from the top of the wardrobe and began stuffing her things in it. They did not amount to much: some underclothes, a few toiletries, a hairbrush and comb, a pair of slippers and two nightdresses she had bought to replace those the hospital had provided her with when she left them. There was her Sunday dress but she would have to wear that because her two uniform dresses, aprons and caps would have to be left behind. There was a book of poems Harry had given her for her birthday, which the Foundling Hospital had decreed was exactly a week before she arrived there, and a scarf and gloves he had given her for Christmas. Everything was soon stowed in the bag and, as she had nothing else to do, she went to bed. But not to sleep.

Next morning, bleary-eyed, she collected two weeks’ wages from the housekeeper; Lady Chalfont declined to see her again and would not allow her to say goodbye to the children. She picked up her bag and left by the mews gate. Ted Austen was lounging against the garage door smoking a cigarette. She turned and hurried away in the opposite direction, half afraid he would follow her. But then she told herself not to be so silly; he had to drive Sir Bertram to the factory, as he did every weekday morning, returning to take Lady Chalfont to the shops or to her various social engagements, and he would not dare absent himself. But she was aware of his triumphant grin.

She took a train to Berkhamsted and the Foundling Hospital, the only other home she had ever known.

Harry stood by the bandstand for two hours the following Sunday before giving up and going home. He did not think for a minute that Julie would stand him up on purpose, so something must have prevented her from coming. He did the same thing the following week and by then he was becoming very worried. She had become important to him; he missed her infectious laugh, her serious moments, her naivety mixed with a kind of age-old wisdom which made her uniquely Julie. At work, he tried to find out if anything catastrophic had happened at the Chalfont residence which might have prevented her from meeting him, but no one knew anything and Sir Bertram arrived at the factory each morning as he always did and seemed his usual smiling self.

The third Sunday it was raining and he toured their indoor haunts but there was no sign of her. On subsequent Sundays, he took to standing at the end of her street in the hope of catching a glimpse of her, and when that proved futile, he wandered down the mews and peeped in the back gate. It was here, one Sunday, he saw Ted Austen who took a malicious delight in telling him Julie had been dismissed.

‘What for? Where’s she gone?’

‘What for? On account of you. As for where she’s gone, how should I know? Good riddance say I. She was a tease.’

‘She is not a tease. What you mean is you couldn’t have your way with her. I know who to blame for this …’ He was clenching his fists down his sides and holding himself rigid to prevent himself lashing out. It was more important to find out where Julie had gone. ‘Where is she?’

‘How should I know? Didn’t she come running to you? Now, there’s a surprise. No doubt she’s found a new protector.’

Harry raised his fist, changed his mind and strode away. He had to find Julie. But how? She could be anywhere in the whole of London, might even have gone further afield. It seemed hopeless. Why hadn’t she come straight to him? She must have known he would look after her.

He went home and sought out his father who was reading the Sunday paper in the sitting room. They lived in a large semi-detached house in Islington. It was close enough to get to the factory easily, but far enough from it and the rest of the docklands to be considered above it in the social hierarchy.

Harry flung himself down in the chair opposite his father. ‘Pa, how do you go about finding someone who’s disappeared?’

Donald set aside the newspaper to answer his son. ‘It depends. Who’s disappeared?’

‘A girl I know.’

His father grinned. ‘I thought there was something different about you. Putting all that stuff on your hair and dressing up of a Sunday afternoon. Who is she?’

‘Julie Monday. You remember when we went to Southend, I said I’d met this girl who was lost?’

‘No, when was that?’

‘The year I went to grammar school. She was down there with a crowd from the Foundling Hospital and I took her back to her charabanc.’

‘I seem to remember something about it. What about her?’

‘I met her again last year. She was working in Sir Bertram’s household. I heard her screaming for help and found this fellow molesting her in the garden, so I waded in and saw him off with his tail between his legs. We’ve been seeing each other off and on ever since. Now she’s been dismissed because Her Ladyship found out about it. I don’t reckon that’s fair, do you?’

‘No, perhaps not, but Her Ladyship is one of the old school.’

‘It isn’t as if we were doing anything wrong, simply going for walks and talking. Now she’s gone and I don’t know where. I’ve been going round all our old haunts but there’s no sign of her. She’s such a little innocent, I’m afraid she’ll get into trouble.’

‘I don’t see it’s any of your business, son.’

‘Of course it’s my business. She lost her job because of me and I don’t think she’ll have been given a reference either. I can’t understand Sir Bertram. What’s so bad about seeing me?’

‘Nothing if you have been behaving yourselves.’

‘Of course we have. I wouldn’t—’

‘Glad to hear it.’

‘I’ve got to find her, Pa. She means the world to me.’

‘Oh, come on, son, she’s only a little orphan you’ve befriended. Don’t take it to heart.’

‘She is not only a little orphan. She’s Julie. There isn’t another like her in the whole world.’

His father sighed. ‘Oh dear, you have got it bad, but I should try and forget her if I were you. She’ll survive on her own.’

Harry could not forget her. He had remembered her for ten years and he would remember her for another ten, and it would not change how he felt about her nor his growing anxiety that she had come to grief. That bounder, Ted Austen, might know and he had a good mind to beat it out of him.

Seeing his obdurate expression, his father added, ‘Don’t do anything rash, Harry. Remember she was working for our boss and you don’t want to make trouble, do you?’

Harry didn’t, but it didn’t stop him seeking Ted Austen out and giving him a hiding. It didn’t do any good. Ted didn’t know where Julie had gone and he cared even less.

What Ted did care about was the fact that he had a black eye and Sir Bertram would be bound to ask how he got it. He went to the kitchen and told the astonished staff he had caught a tramp snooping in the garden and seen him off. They were all for reporting the matter to the police, but he said the fellow had gone now and wouldn’t be back, he had seen to that. But he promised himself that wasn’t the last of it. He had endured regular beatings from his drunken father as a child and been unable to fight back, but after one particularly vicious punishment when he was twelve years old he had run away from home, vowing no one, no one at all, would ever lay a finger on him again. His life from then on had been one of begging and stealing and dodging the police, not always successfully. It was borstal that found him a job cleaning cars at a garage and it was there he had learnt to drive. When he saw the advertisement for a chauffeur for Sir Bertram, he invented a past that would be acceptable, forged a reference and found himself with a well-paid job, a smart uniform and comfortable home. But more importantly, there were no more beatings, until that fellow turned up and hurled him back into his childhood and the pain and suffering he had endured, and that he could not forgive or forget.

‘The hospital cannot take you back in once you’ve left,’ Miss Paterson had told Julie when she arrived on the doorstep of the brand-new Coram home, tired and hungry, and related her sorry tale. ‘And I’m afraid they would be disinclined to help you after getting yourself dismissed.’

‘It wasn’t my fault. We weren’t doing any harm.’

‘You broke the rules. Goodness me, after all the years with us, you must have realised the importance of obeying rules.’

In spite of the scolding, Miss Paterson, who was very near retirement and had found herself a small first-floor flat in Shoreditch in preparation for that day, had taken pity on her and allowed her to move into the flat and helped her to find a job washing up and scrubbing floors in a boarding house on City Road, run by a Mrs Thornby.

Julie was lonelier than ever and she missed seeing Harry. She wondered if he missed her. While her hands became red and rough from the soda in the scrubbing water, she mourned the days they had spent together and dreamt of meeting him again one day.

It came about one Friday in January 1938. It was very early in the morning and she was on her knees stoning the front step when she became aware that someone had stopped behind her. Thinking he wanted to come up the steps, she got off her knees and stood aside to let him pass. And then she gasped. ‘Harry!’

He stared. ‘Julie! I can’t believe it. I searched all over for you. Tell me what happened. How did you come to be here?’

Julie looked fearfully towards the door of the boarding house. ‘I can’t talk now. I’ll get the sack.’

‘When do you finish work?’

‘When it’s all done and I go home to bed.’

‘Oh, come, you must have some time off.’

‘I have a half day a week and a Sunday once a month. It changes about according to what the other staff are doing. Now and again Saturday half day is followed by Sunday and that makes a lovely weekend.’

‘When is your next half day?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘That’s marvellous. I’m off tomorrow too. I’ll wait at the end of the road for you. What time?’

‘Julie!’ someone shrieked from inside the house. ‘I don’t pay you to gossip.’

‘Go away, Harry, please.’

‘Very well. Just tell me a time.’

‘Half past two. But I’m not promising.’

He grinned and strode away.

She watched him go. He was so handsome, so smart and, wonder of wonders, he had been looking for her. He had not forgotten her. Somehow or other she must make it to the rendezvous.

The next day was bitterly cold and threatening snow, but that in no way deterred her. She wore her brown tweed coat, the scarf and gloves Harry had given her, a beret she had knitted for herself and a pair of black button shoes. It was not the weather that filled her with nervous apprehension as she hurried down the street that Saturday afternoon, but wondering if Harry might feel too ashamed to be seen out with someone as shabby as she was. Perhaps he would not be there, perhaps he would decide it was too cold.

To her delight he was waiting for her, well wrapped up in a warm wool coat with a fur collar, a trilby hat and leather gloves. He took her hand and tucked it under his elbow. ‘Shall we find somewhere warm? A hot cup of tea and a bun, don’t you think?’

‘Lovely.’

He took her to Lyons Corner House and they sat over tea and cakes, talking, talking, talking. ‘I nearly went mad wondering what had happened to you,’ he told her. ‘That fellow, the one who assaulted you, took great delight in telling me you had been sacked.’

‘He snitched to Lady Chalfont that I’d been seeing you. I don’t know what’s so bad about that. Her Ladyship was really nasty to me over it. I didn’t tell her who you were, though.’

‘Why not?’

‘I didn’t want to get you into trouble too.’

‘Bless you. Is that why you didn’t meet me as we arranged?’

‘I couldn’t. I’d just started working for Mrs Thornby and I daren’t ask for time off as soon as I got there. I didn’t want to lose another job.’

‘Scrubbing steps.’

‘Among other things.’

‘Do you live in?’

‘No, I live with Miss Paterson. She was one of the teachers at the Coram.’

‘The one I saw that day at Southend?’

‘Yes. She’s just retired and we live in a flat in Shoreditch.’

‘Poor you, having to live with that dragon.’

‘She’s not a dragon, she’s kind-hearted and generous and if it hadn’t been for her, I’d have ended up in the workhouse.’

‘How loyal you are. You shield me and defend her and in the process ruin your pretty hands scrubbing.’

‘We all have to work.’

‘Not all. People like Lady Chalfont don’t do a hand’s turn and many women do nothing but look after husband and house.’

‘That’s work,’ she retorted.

‘But it’s work most of them choose to do. Wouldn’t you like to be free to make that choice?’

‘Pigs might fly.’

‘I mean it. Did you tell Miss Paterson why you were sacked by Lady Chalfont?’

‘Of course I did.’

‘And have you told her you were meeting me today?’

‘No, but I will. I didn’t want to say anything in case you didn’t turn up and I’d have looked a fool.’

He laughed. ‘Don’t you know me better than that?’

‘I hoped I did. Now you are here, what have you been doing? Are you still working at Chalfont’s?’

‘Yes. We’ve turned part of the production over to radios for aeroplanes. They will be needed if there’s a war.’

‘You think there’ll be a war, then?’

‘It looks more and more like it. Everyone at the factory thinks there will be and we’re working two shifts a day and my father spends all hours there. Mother worries about him and about Roly, who’s in the RAF now.’

‘Mrs Thornby is full of gloom. She lost her husband in the last war and keeps telling everyone how awful it was. All those thousands of men killed. My father might have been one of them. I shall never know for sure. It must be terrible for the fighting men and just as bad for those at home waiting for news. I know I should be worried to death if it were you.’

‘Would you?’ He reached out and took her hand and appeared to be studying it.

‘Of course.’ She looked down at their joined hands, one strong and beautifully manicured, the other red and angry with broken nails. How different they were, how indicative of the different lives they led.

‘Julie,’ he began. ‘I don’t know if this is the right time to say this, but I’m going to say it anyway. I love you very much and I couldn’t bear to lose you again, and the only way I can be sure is to ask you to marry me.’

She stared into his face in disbelief. ‘What did you say?’

He laughed and repeated it. ‘So what do you say? Will you marry me?’

‘Do you mean it? Really, really mean it?’

‘Of course I mean it, silly. I think we were meant for each other, right from the beginning when we met on the beach. Why else was I on hand when Ted Austen attacked you? Why else did I find you again after I thought I’d lost you for good? I was on my way to work when I spotted you yesterday. I usually go on the Tube but for some reason I decided to walk. It is fate, our destiny, whatever you like to call it. Don’t you feel it too?’

‘Yes, oh, yes.’ Her eyes were shining and she was very near to tears.

He lifted her work-worn hand, opened the palm and put it to his lips. ‘Then I shall tell my family, and next week I shall take you home to meet them and we can arrange a wedding.’

‘I shouldn’t have said yes,’ she told Miss Paterson, when she went home that evening and related what had happened over supper. ‘I didn’t stop to think. He’s posh and I bet his family will look down on me and I shall feel such an idiot.’

‘Julie Monday, I despair of you. You’ve been pining for that young man for months, don’t think I haven’t noticed, so why the sudden doubts?’

‘I never thought he would ask me to marry him. It’s such a big step and I don’t know anything about being married. I shall get it all wrong, I know I will.’

Grace Paterson laughed. ‘No doubt he will set you right.’

‘Did anyone ever ask you to marry him?’

‘Yes. I was engaged once but he was killed in the last war, so I don’t know anything about being married either. I took to teaching instead.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Of course you didn’t. It’s not something I’d teach in class, is it?’

‘Do you think there’ll be another war?’

‘I don’t know. I pray not.’

‘If there’s a war, Harry might have to fight.’

‘He might. Does that make a difference to how you feel about him?’

‘No, nothing could make a difference to that. I was wondering what it would be like for those left at home.’

‘Hell,’ Grace said. ‘But I cannot think it will be as bad as last time. Lessons have surely been learnt.’

‘It’s all very worrying. Harry said the Chalfont Works were making radios for aeroplanes and working double shifts.’

‘Julie, if you are asking my advice, I’d say seize your happiness while you can, make the most of every day and every night you are together. You can’t know how long it will last.’

Julie jumped up and kissed Miss Paterson on the cheek. ‘That’s just what I wanted to hear.’ She sat down again, her exuberance suddenly evaporating. ‘But what about his family? What if they don’t like me?’