Free Seasons of Love by Anna Jacobs Page B

He’s beginning to be well thought in the district.’ She stared at Helen when she spoke, obviously assessing her status.
    ‘I'm sure my husband would welcome you into our congregation.’
    ‘Would he? Even though my husband is an actor?’ asked Helen. Her own father would not have welcomed an actor's family into his church.
    ‘What difference does that make? Our Lord wasn’t too proud to associate with Mary Magdalene! And an actor isn’t dishonest in his occupation, however much some people disapprove of the theatre.’
    Tears filled Helen's eyes. ‘I'm no Mary Magdalene! Just a foolish parson’s daughter who ran off to marry an actor and was disowned by her family!’
    The woman made a soothing sound and shook her head in sympathy.
    Helen suddenly realised why her son was quiet and dived to stop him. ‘No, Harry! No!
    Naughty!’ Gently she disentangled the remains of some flowers from his chubby little fingers.
    ‘I'm so sorry! He doesn't understand. Let me see if I can do something with these.’
    Deftly her fingers rearranged the flowers, thanks to the old skills acquired during the years of helping her mother to decorate the church with whatever they could find in the woods or the parsonage garden.
    ‘My dear, they look beautiful! Much better than I can ever manage! I wonder - would you like to help me with the flowers now and then? I’d be very grateful.’
    ‘Oh, I’d love to!’
    After that, to Robert's loudly-expressed amusement, Helen took her son to church on Sundays and helped arrange the flowers on the altar every Thursday if she could manage it.
    Sometimes she would take a cup of tea with Mrs Hendry and perhaps chat with the parson when he had time to spare from his busy parish.
    Helen even confided in her new friends the dreadful fact that Harry had not been christened.
    Robert had no interest whatsoever in religion, no belief in anything but the urgency of his own needs. He’d refused to bother about his son's christening and she had been too embarrassed by his attitude to go and see a clergyman on her own.
    A small private ceremony was arranged to remedy this omission and make a Christian of the boy , as Mr Hendry joked. But that raised the vexing question of who would stand as godparents.
    Just as Helen had given up hope of finding anyone, Roxanne turned up again in her life, a plumper, richly-dressed Roxanne, who spoke warmly of her Jack and seemed not to miss the theatre at all. She’d had come to invite them to take tea with her.
    ‘Will you stand as godmother to Harry?’ Helen asked on the first visit. ‘The poor boy hasn’t yet been christened.’
    ‘Me?’ Roxanne gave one of her hearty laughs. ‘What the devil do I know about being a godmother?’
    ‘You know a lot about being kind and that's what matters.’ Helen tried to think of some way of persuading Roxanne, because her worst fear in the world was that something would happen to her and then, she was sure, Robert would abandon Harry without a second thought.
    It took Helen a while to persuade her friend, but in the end, Roxanne agreed and even promised that if anything ever happened to Helen, she would look after the boy.
    Paul Hendry volunteered to act as godfather, seeing Helen's shame and despair at being unable to produce one, so the formalities were more or less attended to. If only Robert had attended the ceremony, thought Helen wistfully, it would have been quite perfect, for dear Harry was so good, not crying at all when the man splashed water on his head. He simply laughed and tried to reach the water in the font himself, all the while observing everything with his bright little eyes.
    Afterwards, Roxanne took her and the Hendrys out for a meal at a respectable inn and bought a bottle of good red wine with which to toast the boy's health.
    As she was leaving, Roxanne looked at Helen. ‘How about you and Harry coming over to tea sometimes? Got to keep an eye on him now, haven't I?’
    ‘Oh, Roxanne, I'd love