Page 82 of The Stranger in Room Six
‘You were pregnant?’ asks Belinda.
Mabel nods. ‘I hadn’t even realized.’
‘That must have been so difficult, especially back then.’
Mabel feels the old sense of shame creeping in. ‘It simply wasn’t done in families like ours. It was the ultimate sin to have a baby out of wedlock. I was terrified by what my aunt was going to do to me. I thought she might throw me out of the house.’
Her eyes pricked with tears.
‘And did she?’
Mabel was dabbing her eyes. ‘She did something far worse.’
53
1943
‘But I love Antonio,’ insisted Mabel when she was summoned to the drawing room. ‘And he loves me. When the war is over, we’ll get married.’
Her aunt snorted. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous. This is the talk of a man who simply wanted his way with you.’ Clarissa was walking up and down the room with a cigarette in her usual ebony holder. ‘What in God’s name are we going to do now? The village will lynch us. You are in the family way thanks to this boy.’
‘The family way?’ asked Mabel.
‘Don’t you understand?’ Her aunt gripped her by both arms, glaring into her face. ‘You are a girl, still in her teens, who is pregnant by an Italian prisoner of war. The villagers will see you as having betrayed the country, just as they still suspect me. We will be finished.’
Cook coughed from the doorway. ‘If you will allow me to interrupt …’
Aunt Clarissa rounded on her. ‘I most certainly will not. What are you doing, eavesdropping like this? You should not even be here. For all I know you’re going to blab this to everyone we know.’
Cook drew herself upright. ‘I have too much respect for your niece to do that. I was going to say that my sister lives in a small village in Cornwall. We could put out the word that Mabel needs a change of air and that she has gone to visit friends. My sister will arrange for the midwife to help Mabelwhen the time comes. Of course, we don’t know when that will be, but the Italian arrived about five months ago. So I’d say she’s at least four months gone. Then …’
‘We will sort out the “then” when it happens,’ said her aunt. Her tone had softened slightly. ‘Thank you. This sounds like the best plan in a dire situation. Mabel, you must get ready immediately. How quickly can you inform your sister, Cook?’
‘I will ask, not inform. And I shall write to her immediately.’
‘You can telephone her for speed.’
‘She isn’t connected.’
‘For God’s sake! Well, find someone nearby who is, and ask her, then. My niece must leave as soon as possible.’
Mabel’s mind was reeling. How could she have a baby without being married? What would her father say when he came home? And, most importantly, how would she tell Antonio?
Aunt Clarissa waggled a finger in front of her, as if reading her mind. ‘You will not leave the house. I forbid it. No one must see you. Look at your waist! It is thickening almost as I speak.’
‘But I need to tell Antonio.’
‘Don’t worry, miss,’ said Cook quickly after Clarissa had left the room. ‘Write me a note and I will get it to him somehow.’
Mabel had no option but to stay in her bedroom like a prisoner. The following day, at sunrise, her aunt drove her to the station. As they went past the camp, Mabel peered out through the window. There he was! At the wire fence, waiting for her. She knocked on the window, but the sound wasn’t loud enough for him to hear. ‘Don’t be so stupid,’ thundered her aunt.
‘Look in my direction please,’ Mabel whispered. Then he did! His expression turned to excitement and then dismay as they drove on.
‘Antonio,’ she wept. ‘Antonio.’
‘For God’s sake,’ Clarissa snapped. ‘Just be grateful that when the war ends, you can reinvent yourself. In my day, we could not do that.’
‘What do you mean?’
