Orphan of Angel Street (53 page)

Mabel appeared a bit bemused, before remembering to look self-righteous and aggressive. ‘Well, if that’s what Mercy wants,’ she said, in the tone of someone who’d never had anything but Mercy’s best interests at heart.

Mercy found both of them looking at her. She gave a tense smile, and nodded.

‘Thank you,’ Grace said. To both of them. ‘Thank you so much.’

They made quite a procession down Catherine Street and along the Moseley Road. Neighbours from Angel Street turned out to wave and wish them well, and there were a few well-meaning whistles as Mabel strode majestically along, smiling her gap-toothed smile. She looked a happy woman.

Behind her walked Mary and family, the Ripleys and McGonegalls and some others who tagged along to see her wed.

Mercy heard Josie Ripley say to Mary, ‘Ain’t she got a husband already somewhere?’

Mary looked round indignantly at her. ‘It’s all regular. She told the vicar like – I mean ’e deserted ’er nearly ten year ago!’

The square tower of St Paul’s loomed with impressive solidity in the sunlight, though its stones were blackened with soot. Mercy could hear small birds twittering in the trees round the church. Taking in a long, nervous breath, she leant her head back and felt warm sunlight on her face.

Mabel, Rosalie and Mary waited outside while the rest of them went in. None of the neighbours were churchgoers. The McGonegalls occasionally went to St Anne’s to Mass in a fit of guilt, but they all seemed to feel muted and out of place in the gloom of the church. As Mercy’s eyes got used to it she saw how stately and beautiful it was inside, how you could see leaves rippling through the coloured glass. For a second she was back in the hall of the Hanley Home, dreaming her way through the long window.

Mercy soon heard the clip-clip of well-made heels, and felt her heart leap with shy expectation. That’s the sound of my mother, she thought. Mother. She’d saved a third row pew. She turned, and in astonishment, saw not only Grace, but Dorothy and Robert, and another smaller boy with almost white-blonde hair. In a haze she stood up, feeling everyone’s eyes on them.

Grace smiled at her, adoringly, defiantly. This was her daughter. She wanted everyone to know. Mercy moved to the far end, Grace and the boys following her, and Dorothy sat by the middle aisle. She leant foward and gave Mercy a long, meaningful look which said, I know you know everything. But there’ll be time afterwards. Plenty of time.

Grace took her hand and squeezed it and Mercy smiled. She thought she might explode with the amazement and wonder of the past few days. None of it had fully sunk in yet. But she kept saying to herself, I’m not alone any more. I’m not alone in the world.

‘This is Edward,’ Grace whispered, as the organ began to play softly in the background. ‘You’re very alike.’ Edward stared at her with naked curiosity and Mercy found herself doing much the same in return.

‘Dorothy says you looked very like that – he’s ten.’

‘I suppose,’ Mercy mused, her eyes not leaving the boy’s face. ‘But I don’t remember any mirrors.’ She reached out her hand nervously, not knowing what to do, and smiled.

‘Hello – I’m Mercy.’

‘Edward,’ he said with grown-up solemnity. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

Mercy laughed softly. ‘I’m pleased to meet you, too.’

‘She’s coming!’ someone hissed, and they all stood up as the wedding march struck up and Mabel appeared at the back of the church. Alf peered round at her from the front.

Mabel, having no living relatives to accompany her, had rather unusually asked Mary to walk her down the aisle. Mary was all smiles, Mabel more nervous and solemn, and Rosalie behind, with her little posy of pink and white carnations.

The church was only a quarter full, but everyone there wished them well. Mabel joined Alf at the front, the door closed at the back.

They all stood up and sang ‘Praise My Soul the King of Heaven’. At the words, ‘ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,’ Mercy felt Grace looking at her and their eyes met for a moment. Mercy was struck with admiration for her, coming here, laying herself bare to everyone. It had taken some guts, that had.

The service began. The heavy door at the back opened and closed a couple of times to let in latecomers. Mabel and Alf said their words with dignity. They looked small and humble standing side by side under that immensely high ceiling in their plain clothes, the only sort they could afford.

Mercy felt a great sadness rush through her as they finished their vows. However much she tried to forget, to count her blessings, it all surfaced unexpectedly. She was to have been married. She and Paul had made their promises to each other and she had rejected him. Missing him gnawed away at her inside. She looked down at her hands folded in her lap, tears in her eyes. The feeling had to go away sooner or later, this ache for him. The door must close, she thought. It just wasn’t meant to be. And this was no time to be dismal. Hiding behind the pretence of wiping her nose, she surreptitiously dabbed the corners of her eyes. Grace kept looking round at her. Couldn’t seem to stop looking at her. She tried to smile.

The ceremony was almost over and Alf, hat in hand, and Mabel were soon exchanging their first kiss as a married couple. Everyone was smiling. Mary Jones’s eyes were wet.

They stood to sing ‘Now Thank We All Our God.’

As soon as the first, rather ragged verse was underway, Mercy felt a tap on her shoulder and turned. One of the churchwardens had crept along the side aisle and whispered discreetly in her ear.

‘Sorry miss – but there’s someone outside requires your assistance.’

Who on earth? They’d asked for some ale to be delivered at the house, but surely to goodness he hadn’t come here to see her about it? She put her hymn book down and with a baffled shrug said to Grace, ‘I’ll see you outside.’ She followed the warden, very much on his dignity, to the back of the church.

‘Didn’t want to disturb you but it seemed urgent like,’ he said stiffly, pulling the door open. ‘There you go . . .’

There was no one in the porch, so she went out, bewildered and rather irritated. What was so urgent that it couldn’t wait until they’d finished? She looked from side to side.

‘Mercy.’

He stepped out from under the trees. His face was sallow, exhausted-looking, the suffering in it plain to see.

‘Paul,’ she said, at a loss. ‘Oh heavens – Paul.’

They stood looking at each other, the hymn sounding thinly from inside the church.

‘How did you get here?’ she asked him, somehow calmer than he was. His agitation was obvious, his hands gripping the edges of his open jacket. His face was even thinner than she remembered, fatigued. The sight of it wrung her heart.

‘You told me the name of the street. So I asked – in a shop. They said you’d gone to a wedding, and I thought at first . . .’ He shrugged helplessly.

‘No – oh, no! It’s Mabel – and Alf. My . . . my . . . the people I live with.’

He turned away a fraction. ‘My father died last week. So I—’

‘Oh Paul.’

‘Mercy, why did you write that letter? What on earth happened? I haven’t been able to sleep, to think straight. I had to ask myself, were you just playing with me – all the time? Is my judgement completely wrong? Was everything that happened just a . . . a . . .’ He put his hand to his forehead. ‘I knew you, or thought I did. You were so straight, so true. I can’t make sense of anything. I thought you’d just write back and say everything was all right, that it was just a mistake, joke even . . .’ He raked his hand through his hair.

She looked anxiously over her shoulder. ‘They’ll be out in a minute, come round here.’

They crept round the side of the church under the shade of the trees. A blackbird rose from one of them, chirruping in alarm. Mercy felt weak, trembling, but she still had a small pool of calm inside her. She longed to put her arms round him, to comfort, spread her love round him, but that would be wrong. She would tell him the worst, the truth, and then he could forget her as she had tried to forget him. He deserved to know. She would tell him straight, bluntly, the thing a man would least want to hear.

Standing apart from him she looked into his eyes. He watched her, arms folded as if to protect his heart, yet his eyes were so full of tenderness she was forced to look away again. Her own expression was brave, but infinitely sad.

‘I’m expecting a babby.’

He was silent for a moment, then his hands hung loose at his sides. His tone was flat, defeated.

‘Oh – I see.’ He was struggling to take it in. ‘So you’re already married then.’

‘No, Paul, I’m not.’ She told him with a truthfulness that was almost brutal, about James Adair.

‘It happened twice. I didn’t know how I could stop him and I didn’t want it. If you can believe anything I say, please believe that. I’d never have thought it of him then – and I was so frightened . . . didn’t know. I just didn’t know what to do.’

Her distress began to seep through, despite her efforts to remain calm. She put her hands over her burning face. This was the most horrible, the dirtiest moment of her life, facing all this again, having to tell him of all people.

When she looked up, he too had his face in his hands. It’s over now, she thought. He knows the very worst of me.

After a moment he said brokenly, ‘I came wanting to be angry with you . . .’ He looked up at her. ‘Did you love him?’

‘Love him?’ She was aghast. ‘How can you ask me that? Paul, I was spending every waking moment I could with you. It was like a nightmare – every time I went back to that room. I couldn’t tell you what was happening. I felt so ashamed, so used and dirty. I’d try and put it out of my mind in the day, almost as if it were happening to someone else. And with you – you were the one I loved with all my heart. I still . . .’ Her control was slipping away from her. ‘Oh Paul, I’ve wanted you so bad I can’t even tell you. I was so scared and sick and ashamed when I got home – when I found out there was a babby and it wasn’t all going to go away. I didn’t want you to know because . . . How could I tell you something so disgusting about me so that you’d despise me? I had to run away from the Adairs in the middle of the night and I wrote to you, and I thought, better just to . . . to cut it off. Finish it.’ She wiped her eyes and looked up, overcome to see tears in his.

‘Mercy.’ He stepped closer to her, cautiously. ‘Do the Adairs know about this child?’

‘No! They must never know! It would make her so unhappy and even more, I don’t want him to know. I can survive without him. He lied to me,’ she finished furiously. ‘He used me like a dirty handkerchief and he said it wouldn’t happen. I wouldn’t have a babby – as if he knew! No – I may be alone, but I don’t want him anywhere near.’

The door of the church opened and they heard whoops of laughter as Alf and Mabel came out to be showered with rice.

Paul grasped her hand and pulled her even closer to the wall, out of sight.

‘Tell me something.’ He spoke with immense intensity, his face close to hers, eyes still wet with tears. ‘Tell me truthfully whether you could . . . whether you still feel anything for me.’

She saw the anguish with which he waited for her answer. ‘Oh Paul, of course I do,’ she said gently. ‘There’s only one man I love with all my heart and that’s you. I’ve never stopped loving you and I’ve missed you so much sometimes, I felt like coming to find you. Except I knew it was all impossible. That it’s hopeless now. Sometimes I think I’m fated always to be on my own.’

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why should you be alone?’

‘Paul,’ she reminded him gently. ‘I’m carrying another man’s child. How could I expect you to forgive that, however much I didn’t want it?’

Paul suddenly pressed his hands to her face, lifting her chin a little. His palms were hot on her cheeks.

‘Say again that you love me.’

Tears ran down her face. ‘I do. I love you.’

‘And I love you. YOU. I told you before, whatever the past, whatever we are and what we’ve done, or what’s been done to us, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I can’t live without you. Not properly.’

‘But this isn’t the past, Paul, it’s now.’

He released her, but stayed close. ‘Do you think, in the great scheme of things, that my bringing up a child that isn’t mine is so very terrible? Mercy, I’m not looking to you for purity or perfection or any of that mumbo-jumbo. I’m so sorry for all you’ve suffered believing I was, but you were wrong. I’ve learned that surviving is about more than just staying alive. It’s about holding on to the few worthwhile things there are, the things that make sense, that you can love.’

They stared into each other’s eyes, both their faces wet with tears. He reached for her hand. ‘Now, once more, my dearest love – please will you be my wife and share your life with me?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered, weeping. Then finding her voice, ‘Yes. Yes!’

As if in response to their promises a cheer broke from the front of the church as their arms reached for each other, cheeks, then lips meeting, each clinging to the most precious thing in life.

*

Grace was standing rather at a loss with Dorothy at the front of the church while the rest of the party talked and celebrated in the sunshine. Mabel and Alf posed for a couple of photographs, solemnly side by side. There was food waiting at home, but no one was in a rush. It was a lovely day and a celebration, so what was the hurry?

Holding Paul’s hand, Mercy led him shyly round to the jubilant little crowd. Grace looked relieved, then puzzled on seeing her.

Mercy stopped him for a moment. ‘Paul, I’ve got summat else to tell you. This has been the strangest, most wonderful week of my life.’ Her eyes radiated joy and excitement, but Grace could also see that Mercy’s face was flushed from recent tears and her heart filled with anxiety for her.

‘I want you to meet Grace Weston,’ Mercy said, leading Paul over.

Each of them shook hands, smiling politely, a little baffled.

‘Paul – Grace is my mother. My real mother. And mother – Mom,’ she giggled, still unused to saying it, ‘this is Paul Louth, the man I dearly love and am going to marry.’