Free A Daughter's Duty by Maggie Hope Page A

opened at seven o’clock. And it was Monday tomorrow, he had to work.
    ‘Has she been like this since it happened?’
    Rose jumped. She had sat down by the fire and was drying her eyes on the hand towel, which she’d pulled from the brass rail over the range, so she didn’t notice Aunt Elsie enter the kitchen.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Come on, lass, bear up,’ Elsie said bracingly, putting an arm awkwardly around her shoulders. ‘Where’s that brother of mine anyway?’
    ‘Out.’
    Elsie nodded. ‘Aye, he would be. Well, never mind, let’s have a nice cup of tea. Where’s the twins?’
    ‘Oh, I forgot. They were tired out, you know, they saw Mam fall. So I put them to bed. By, they’ve slept two hours, I’d best get them up.’
    ‘No, leave them a few minutes, they’ll take no harm. They can stay up a bit later the night,’ said her aunt. Rose pushed the kettle on to the fire and set the table, bringing out bread and butter and sliced Spam. She’d been going to stew plums for tea and make custard but it was too late now. Instead she brought out a cake she had been saving for Christmas.
    ‘I brought a few things and me ration book, of course.’ Elsie said now. ‘By, who’d have thought there would still be rationing two years after the end of the war? We all believed the Labour government would see things right, but now we’re beginning to wonder. I know those poor folk on the continent are in a worse state than we are, or at least that’s what we’re told, but who
won
the flaming war? That’s what I want to know.’
    Rose found to her surprise that she was hungry. She ate her way through the bread and butter (well, marge), and had a piece of cake, all the time listening to Aunt Elsie talk while keeping an ear open for her mother and the twins. And in spite of all her troubles, she was comforted.

Chapter Seven
    There was a letter for Marina among the Christmas cards which came to the house on Christmas Eve. Kate picked it out and handed it over to her. ‘Oh, look, this is for you,’ she said. ‘Who do you know in North Yorkshire? Apart from Hetty and Penny that is. This is a man’s writing.’
    Marina took the letter and turned away in case her face betrayed the rush of excitement she felt when she saw Charlie’s narrow hand. ‘I expect it’s just someone from work, down there for Christmas,’ she said. She felt wretched in a way. Why couldn’t she acknowledge Charlie, tell her family all about him, be proud of her gorgeous boyfriend? After all, the family would have to know when they got married, wouldn’t they? But still, she kept him a secret as he wanted her to, though she told herself she had no doubts about him, she loved him, didn’t she? And here was a letter, proof that he couldn’t get through the Christmas vacation without her.
    ‘Well, go on, open it,’ said Kate, who couldn’t imagine that Marina could have anything which she wanted to keep private from her. Reluctantly, she slit the top of the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of paper.
    It was a note rather than a letter. There wasn’t even a proper signature, just a
C
, and a sweeping line underneath it. Very stylish, she thought.
    ‘Meet me in the usual place in Durham,’
it read.
‘7 p.m. Boxing Day. I have tickets for the concert at St Nicholas’s.’
    Marina stared at it, a feeling of resentment beginning to quell her excitement. Who did he think he was, not even getting in touch for over a week and then summoning her like this?
    ‘What is it?’ asked Kate. She peered over Marina’s shoulder and Marina let her. After all, there was nothing suspicious in the note, nothing at all. ‘Who is it? Why didn’t whoever it is sign his name properly? Affected, that is.’
    ‘It’s not a man, it’s a woman … Celia. You must have heard me mention her? She works in the Surveyor’s Department. She’s on holiday, comes back on Boxing Day.’ Even as she said it, Marina amazed herself with how easily the lies rolled