Free Father Unknown by Lesley Pearse Page B

didn’t see how it would turn out right from the start. Albert was always indifferent to her, the farmhouse was even more primitive than the one she’d lived in as a child, there was no money, and farming wasn’t the easy life she’d imagined.
    But she did grow fond of Ellen, for she was a happy baby and easy to take care of. Then, when she discovered that she too was expecting a child, her first feelings were ones of utter amazement, for after all those men she’d been with in Plymouth, without once missing, she’d begun to believe she was infertile.
    Albert agreed to marry her, but he made it quite clear that he considered it only a marriage of convenience, and she knew he compared her unfavourably with Clare. All Violet could hope for was that this would change when their own child was born, and that he would grow to love her.
    But Clare’s ghost would not go away. Violet felt her presence constantly. Albert took her paintings off the parlour wall and burned them, tore up her poetry and gave away her clothes, but she was still there, if only in Albert’s heart. It was as if she even entered the room at the moment of Josie’s birth too, and prevented Violet’s baby from having any of her mother’s characteristics, for even at a few days old it was plain that she was going to look exactly like Ellen.
    Violet was glad enough that her child was so obviously a Pengelly, with the trademark curly red hair. It made life simpler; newcomers to the area had no reason to guess she wasn’t the first and only Mrs Pengelly. Gradually the gossip about them faded and died. Maybe this was only because people knew Albert was not a man to upset, but Violet liked to think it was because they approved of her. Yet as the two girls grew older and their characters began to form, Violet often felt a sharp stab of jealousy towards Ellen because she was clever. Josie might not have inherited her mother’s lank hair, or the cast in her eye, but she seemed far slower than her half-sister. It was also Ellen that people were drawn to, not Josie.
    Violet could put up with playing second fiddle to a dead woman, but she was not going to let Ellen overshadow her daughter.
    As the two girls walked into the farmhouse, Violet flew at Ellen and slapped her hard across the face. ‘How dare you leave Josie to come home alone?’ she shouted at her. ‘Anything could have happened to her.’
    Ellen burst into tears. Dad wasn’t there, but she knew he must have told her mum what had happened today, otherwise she wouldn’t have known Josie had had to come most of the way home on her own. So why wasn’t she being kind?
    ‘I couldn’t help it,’ Ellen sobbed. ‘I had to leave school to ask Daddy if it was true. I didn’t think about Josie.’
    ‘I didn’t mind coming home on my own,’ Josie piped up. She didn’t understand what was going on at all, and she didn’t like seeing her sister slapped. ‘Don’t be cross with her, Mummy!’
    But instead of calming her mother down Josie’s words seemed to rile her even more. ‘Get upstairs,’ she yelled at Josie, flapping at her with a towel as though she was a chicken that had run into the kitchen.
    As Josie ran upstairs, Violet rounded on Ellen again. ‘Now, look here, madam,’ she said, her pale fat face contorted with spite, ‘I took care of you when no one else would. I’ve dearly suffered for you and your damned mother. But one more word of this business again to anyone, especially your father, and I’ll skin you alive. You got that?’
    Ellen had. With those few words she knew without any doubt that this woman she’d believed to be her mother didn’t care about her at all.

Chapter Four
    1963
    ‘What are you going to do then, Ellen?’ Josie asked.
    It was a Sunday afternoon in June and very warm. The two girls were sitting on a rock down on the beach in the little cove, and the subject under discussion was Ellen’s future education.
    ‘I dunno,’ Ellen said, wriggling her toes