Barbara and Ted felt just as overcome, although they were making a better fist of hiding their exuberant feelings. They really missed having their children at home, but Ted was convinced that the bombs would soon be falling on London and so Connie and Jessie were much less likely to come to physical harm, or worse (although that didn’t bear thinking about) if they stayed billeted in Harrogate. And although Barbara probably would have brought the children back to Bermondsey if it had been left up to her, she trusted Ted’s opinion and knew that he wouldn’t be so insistent if he didn’t really believe that Jubilee Street was going to be very vulnerable to aerial attack.
Angela had no option other than to wait for them all to walk back to her, while she sat marooned in her wheelchair on its wheels as she noticed how alike Peggy and Barbara were, and how Jessie favoured his father’s colouring.
Milburn’s lead rope was still hanging downwards but the pony hadn’t taken the opportunity to test her freedom and instead had edged over so that she was standing beside Angela, casting curious looks towards the new arrivals. Then the small mare shook her nose forwards and backward several times as if she rather approved of Ted looking strong and muscular in his Sunday-best suit and Barbara smart and pretty, with the sunshine highlighting her freshly pin-curled hair.
‘Blimey!’ yelled Larry, the second he spied the pony. And then a little more quietly but with an unmistakeable tone of wonder in his voice, ‘Blimey O’Reilly.’
Milburn looked as if she were pretty much thinking the same thing as Larry headed towards her.
‘Larry, language please,’ Barbara reprimanded.
She might as well have saved her breath as Larry looked around at his pals with a massive grin and then simply repeated ‘Blimey!’ again, although this time in the most excited tone of all, as if he were thinking of all sorts of things they could all get up to now that they looked as if they might have the cheeky-looking Milburn with them as a partner in crime.
Milburn’s mischievous glint in her eye seemed to say that yes, she agreed with Larry, and that they only had to say the word and she’d be ready and willing for all manner of fun and frolics over the summer. Whatever japes they could think of would be all right with her, yes sirree.
Larry appeared to everyone as if he had grown taller too, although his scrawnier frame, sunken cheeks, shadows smudged under his eyes and generally a more put-upon demeanour were a far cry from the bonny boy who had left them at Tall Trees earlier in the year.
As Tommy went to grab hold of the handles to push Angela’s chair, Aiden picked up Milburn’s rope, Ted divided everyone’s luggage between his two hands, and Larry seemed unable to take his eyes off Milburn. And then he said as if he hadn’t uttered anything a matter of seconds ago, ‘Wot the bloomin’ ’eck is that?’
‘It’s a pony, dimwit. A pony,’ said Tommy, laughing. ‘And when Father isn’t using her, she’s ours to do with what we want.’
‘Blimey. Blimey O’Reilly.’
‘Lang—’ said Barbara, and then gave a defeated smile. ‘Oh, what’s the point!’
Ted laughed and pulled Barbara close to him for a moment, and then they broke apart, eager to hear what the twins had been up to.
And with that, the odd mismatch of people trooped back to Tall Trees.
Mabel and Roger knew already that Barbara and Ted were coming to visit, although they hadn’t given as much as the tiniest hint about this to anybody else, even Peggy, as Barbara had telephoned the previous afternoon to say that she was terribly sorry for the short notice, but she wondered if it were all right if she and Ted could stay over for a day or two at Tall Trees.
Mabel told Barbara how wonderful it would be and that the twins, and Peggy, would be over the moon.
Then there had been the usual friendly argy-bargy between the women over the financial arrangements, with Barbara offering a payment and Mabel refusing, and Barbara insisting, and Mabel refusing, and so forth, after which Barbara had begged Mabel and Roger to keep their visit a surprise.
Mabel had agreed, but actually it proved to be a trickier thing to keep quiet about than she had expected.
For first thing that morning Mabel had almost been caught by Peggy carrying fresh sheets and clean towels across the back yard on her way to sort out the generously proportioned room above the stables that Peggy and Gracie had once shared and where Barbara and Ted would now be sleeping.
A quick-thinking Mabel had had to dart into the pantry to hide as Peggy then spent what felt to Mabel to be an inordinate age standing just on the other side of the pantry door in the kitchen getting herself and Holly ready to leave the house and head over to June Blenkinsop’s. At one point, Peggy even asked Holly if she should take June the bag of currants she had for her that were – naturally – in the pantry, causing Mabel’s heart to do a flip, and then a double-flip as if in answer.
Holly didn’t say anything in reply – well, that wasn’t surprising given her tender age – but she did let out a cheery gurgle.
At last Mabel was able to breathe an audible sigh of relief when Peggy decided that the dratted currants could wait for another day as June probably wouldn’t be doing any of this sort of baking on a Sunday as she’d be concentrating on getting large trays of cottage pies and Lancashire hotpots ready for the coming week. Finally Peggy got around to pushing the pram out through the back door and weaving it through the yard and onto the garden path to the road.
This was a huge relief because, try as she might, Mabel hadn’t been able to think of a convincing reason why she was hiding next to the large bowl of eggs from their hens at the bottom of the garden and a hessian sack of potatoes with its top rolled over so that the teddies were easy to get to. And Mabel knew that Peggy would almost definitely have smelt a rat of the Barbara-and-Ted-arriving variety if she had caught her sneaking about in the pantry with an armful of clean laundry and no plausible reason for doing so.
Now, as the others would all be making their way back from the station, Mabel only just had time to find Peggy a handful of clean hankies following the telephone call with Bill, and to make her cup of tea. She’d sneaked a surreptitious peek at a soggy and spent Peggy, and couldn’t decide if Barbara’s imminent arrival was a good or a bad thing. It could go either way, to judge by the look of her, Mabel thought.
Peggy remained closeted still in Roger’s study with a desolate expression on her face, staring with unfocused eyes into the distance, obviously dazed and emotionally exhausted after her unheralded display of temper following her highly wrought outburst.
Although Holly had been bawling, Mabel wasn’t sure that Peggy had even heard her daughter’s cries, as for the very first time her doting mother hadn’t raced across the corridor to attend to her, and this neglect had made Holly wail even more loudly.
Now, across the way in the kitchen and jollied along by Roger, Holly had finally ceased crying although she remained restless and a little snivelly, her eyelashes still wet with tears, following such a rude awakening from her nap caused by the clatter of things hitting the floor in the study.
Once the baby’s wails had abated, a too casual-seeming Roger replaced Holly back in her sleeping drawer and then quickly made himself scarce, leaving Mabel to pick the baby up again when Holly started to grizzle, as she did almost immediately.
Mabel had no choice other than to walk around the kitchen, jiggling Holly in her arms as she showed her what was in the kitchen cabinets, and the eggs and potatoes in the pantry, in an effort to prevent her from returning to her full-blown wailing of a few minutes earlier.
Holly