Our Lizzie (45 page)

Polly burst into tears when she read it. Lizzie had not given her any address to write back to, but someone called Peggy had put the letter in an envelope and scribbled a note saying that if Polly wanted to write to her sister, she should send it to this address in London and write
PLEASE FORWARD TO PEGGY
on the top left-hand corner.

“What's up?” Eddie asked, when he came home and found his young wife with reddened eyes.

“I've heard from our Lizzie. She's safe. And—and I've burnt your chops!” Polly burst into tears again and found great comfort in his thin but reassuring arms.

“Eeh, lass, I'm that glad for you. Where is she?”

“She doesn't say, but she's got herself a job in munitions and she's made some friends and says she hasn't been as happy for years.” And Polly sobbed all the harder in sheer relief. “Oh, I do wish I could see her.”

*   *   *

One day after work, Peggy caught up with Lizzie and held her back from the group of girls who lived in the same part of town and always walked home together, tired after their long shift. “I've got something for you.” She flourished an envelope. “Recognise the handwriting?”

Lizzie stopped dead in the middle of the pavement, her heart thumping. “It's Polly's. But how did you—?”

“I got my friend Helen at union headquarters to forward it to me. I had to tell her why, but she's on your side and won't give your address to anyone else. And if you send letters to her, she'll post them to your family for you. So now you do have a way of writing to your sister.” She had to guide Lizzie into a side street and stand with her till the tears had ceased. “Well, aren't you going to open it?”

“No, I'll save it for later.” Lizzie gave her a tremulous look. “I'll only cry again when I read it.” Then she threw her arms round Peggy and gave her a big hug. “I don't know how to thank you! You've been a wonderful friend to me.”

It seemed as if everything in her life had changed for the better since the day she'd met Peggy in the station in Manchester. She had a job, friends, lodgings with a motherly woman, and she was even saving money. After the war, she knew she'd have to think what to do, perhaps emigrate to Australia or somewhere Sam could never find her, but for the moment this suited her fine. And anyway, like most other people, she wanted to do her bit for her country.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Spring–Summer 1917

Lizzie saw her twenty-first birthday pass with a sense of unreality. She had been away from Sam for over two years now, and yet still she felt his shadow looming over her. The birthday, which no one else knew about except her, was followed by the month everyone was soon calling “Bloody April,” when the enemy had success after success against British aircraft on the Western Front.

To add to the gloom, Polly wrote to tell her that Jack Dearden had been killed in one of those air battles—indeed, it was a wonder he'd lasted so long—and Lizzie shed a few tears for the happy-go-lucky lad she'd walked with in the park. How long ago that all seemed now. She had been a mere child. Well, at least he'd got to fly his beloved planes.

She wrote a letter to Mrs. D expressing her condolences, but still did not dare send it direct from Murforth. Only Polly and Eva knew her address here, for as the months passed without a sign of Sam finding her, she'd relented and told them where she was. She wouldn't let them pass the address on to Percy, though, and she wouldn't let them visit her. It would only take one accident, one person finding out where she was, for Sam to trace her.

As spring lengthened into summer, Lizzie began to feel weary. She was an experienced worker now, having spent time in several of the departments at the munitions factory, moving from one low sprawling work area to the next, learning to know her way through the maze of yards and store-rooms and despatch areas. Peggy, who was now a senior union representative, was trying to get her interested in helping her fellow workers through union activities, but Lizzie knew that sort of thing wasn't for her. Let alone she wasn't clever enough to think things out as Peggy did, and deal with the bosses, she knew that as soon as the war was over she had to get out of the country. Fast.

She had thought and thought about her situation and had come to realise that so long as he was alive, Sam would never willingly let her go. The first thing he'd do when he got out of the Army would be to come looking for her, she was sure. So she had settled on Australia as a destination, because the Australians were sort of like cousins to the English. Well, they were fighting against the Huns side by side, weren't they? And a lot of them came from England originally. So they must be all right. Though the thought of going so far away all on her own terrified her, and sometimes, even living here in Murforth, she was just plain homesick for Overdale and all the people she knew, like Mrs. D and Emma Harper.

But she'd not go till after they'd won the war. She was making a difference to the war effort in her own way. She was quite proud of that, proud even of the long scar on one forearm from an accident at the factory. Once the war was won, she'd leave and again tell no one where she was going, not even Peggy. Only this time she'd not write to them. She just couldn't risk it, not if she wanted to feel safe. Sam was a dangerous man when his temper was roused, a very dangerous man. She sometimes wondered if she should even have told Polly and Eva her new address.

On those nights when she still woke from terror-filled nightmares, she would lie there trying to trace the pattern of Sam's obsession with her from the time she'd first walked on the wall, for it had all seemed to start that day, right through to when she was very ill with the influenza—and he had been good to her then, there was no denying that—and then to the way he'd later persuaded her to marry him. Could she have avoided it all? She didn't know. But what puzzled her most, what she could never really understand, was why, if he'd wanted her so badly, he had hurt her so much? Maybe it was some darkness inside him, for other women at the factory talked with fondness of their husbands, never showed any signs of bruising and wept when their fellows were killed.

It seemed to Lizzie now that in the past she had just let herself drift, but she wasn't going to do that again. From now on, she would make her own plans and choose her own path.

In the meantime, the war had brought all sorts of food shortages to complicate daily life, and rumours had it that Britain had only a few weeks' supply left. People were encouraged to have “meatless days” and most accepted this cheerfully. Lizzie had never been a fussy eater, so she just polished off what was set before her, both by her kindly landlady and in the canteen at work where supplies were slightly better than average, since the girls in the factory were doing such important war work. And anyway, other rumours said Germany was in a far worse state for food. They all took comfort from that thought.

Her landlady had a small back garden planted with potatoes, as did many of their neighbours. They compared progress and exchanged ideas for growing more vegetables. Posters said things like “Eat Less Bread—Save the Wheat and Help the Fleet.”

Mrs. Bailey was a bit put out by this. “I don't know what they expect us to do. If we can't eat meat and we're not to eat as much bread, what
can
we eat? We can't eat potatoes all the time. Or cabbage. And do you know how long I had to queue yesterday to get some margarine, Lizzie? Three-quarters of an hour. It's a bit much, it really is. I know there's a war on, but people still have to live, or why are we fighting?”

Lizzie just made soothing noises and soon they got talking about Mrs. Bailey's daughter and her little grandson.

In April, too, the Germans staged a naval raid on Ramsgate, which made everyone furious that civilians, especially children, could be attacked like that. Wanton slaughter, that's all it was. It just went to show the depths to which the enemy would sink when they would fire on innocent citizens not directly involved in the combat. Which was why they had to be stopped.

In May the fighting in France became more desperate and casualty lists grew longer and longer. One or two more of the women at work lost their fellows and that made everyone feel a bit down.

Lizzie couldn't help wishing Sam were among them and she always studied the casualty lists in the papers very carefully. You'd notice a name like Thoxby. But it was never there. She'd feel glad if he died, glad and relieved, even if that was a sinful way to think. But men like him seemed to be protected by the devil and if she knew him, he'd probably come out of the war better off than he went into it. He usually did manage to turn things to his own advantage.

She wrote to Polly from time to time. Her little sister was carrying her first child, which made Lizzie think of her own loss and weep for it again. It was hard not to go and see Polly at this important time, hard too that she talked of little but Eddie and the coming baby in her letters.

In June, Polly wrote to say she had heard from Percy that Sam was still alive and had come back to Overdale on leave, though of course she hadn't seen him herself because she rarely went into town and kept right away if she ever heard he was there. Well, it was no hardship, for her mother was getting barmier by the month and she hated to see her parading round town looking like a scarecrow dressed in party clothes. But it was nice to see Percy now and then. He'd been over to Outshaw a few times now and got on very well with dear Eddie.

*   *   *

As the summer days grew warmer and the sunshine made her itch to get outside, Lizzie allowed herself to be persuaded to spend a day in Manchester with two of the girls from work. They had all been working on night shift for a while and Peggy, now head supervisor, said they needed a break before starting day shifts again, so told them to take a week's holiday and go out and enjoy themselves.

Lizzie felt that with his last visit so recent, Sam couldn't possibly be coming back to England for a while yet, so surely it'd be safe to go? She'd really welcome a change of scene and had never visited Manchester before, except for the railway station where she'd met Peggy.

The city seemed very large and she lagged behind the other girls as they walked from the station through the busy town centre, feeling quite bewildered by it all. There were still fashionably clad ladies around, but they all wore their skirts much shorter than before the war. Her companions pointed and giggled at some of the fussy, draped creations they saw, but Lizzie was more interested in the working women wearing uniforms. A postwoman, a conductress on an omnibus, even a policewoman. How things were changing! Peggy was right—women could do anything the men could. Well, almost anything.

Oh, there were shortages in Manchester, of course, and many shops bore signs asking you to remember there was a war on and only to buy what you needed. Still, there seemed an incredible choice of things for sale after Murforth, though the higher prices made the three young women gasp.

Suddenly, as she was lingering behind the others to stare at some materials in a shop window, since she needed a new summer dress, a voice called out, “Lizzie! It's Lizzie!” and she swung round, her heart thumping in panic, ready to flee.

But it was Peter Dearden, his hand heavily bandaged, beaming at her from across the street. Without thinking, she ran across the road and flung herself into his arms, so delighted to see him she didn't even notice the angry shouts of a motorist, some cyclists ringing their bells and a man driving a cart laden with boxes shaking his fist at her.

Neither did Peter. “You do look well.” He stared down at her, his good hand resting lightly on her shoulder. “Better than I've ever seen you look, I think. Oh, Lizzie, it's so
good
to see you! And that short hair suits you, it really does.”

She'd given up trying to curl her hair now and had it in a jaw-length bob, with a straight fringe.

“You look well, too,” she said softly, beaming up at him.

At the same moment, they both became aware of his arm around her shoulders, the way their bodies were pressed together, and she jerked away. He took a step backwards, his eyes still devouring her. Why had he not remembered how piquant her face was, how her eyes sparkled with life, how her lips curved so easily into a smile? “Thank you for writing when Jack got killed. It meant a lot to Mother.”

Tears filled her eyes. “I felt so sad when Polly told me.” She still couldn't believe that she'd never see Jack's cheeky grin again.

“We were glad to hear from you, and to know that you were getting on all right. You only sent a short note when you repaid the money. You didn't need to do that, Lizzie. We were happy to help you in any way we could and we're not short of money.”

“I needed to pay it back, for my own self-respect.” It was very important to her now that she managed her money well and had some decent savings to help her escape after the war. She looked round for her friends but couldn't see them, and with him standing next to her, so tall and attractive, found she didn't really care.

“Have you time for a cup of tea with an old friend?”

“Of course I have.” She abandoned all thought of finding Mary and Jen. She could make her own way back to the station later. The others would understand when she told them she'd met an old friend who was now a soldier and had been wounded. Everyone wanted to do their best for the boys on leave.

“Come on, then, let's find somewhere really nice.”

It was only when they'd sat down that she realised. “You're an officer!”

“Only a Lieutenant.”

“Oh, but you must have done well to get promoted from the ranks.”

His face took on a shadowed look. “Yes, I suppose so. But I'm standing in dead men's shoes, as it were.” He changed the subject quickly. Some things you didn't discuss with civilians. “What are you doing with yourself nowadays? You didn't say in your letter. Sam hasn't found you, I gather?”