Candles in the Storm by Rita Bradshaw Page A

him an’ me da an’ some others’ - the big pale-blue eyes were enormous now and fixed on Daisy’s face - ‘they were caught in the storm a few days ago. They didn’t come home, lass.’
     
    ‘I . . . don’t understand.’
     
    The stricken expression on the girl’s face told Daisy that Tom’s lass understood only too well, but she gentled her voice still further as she said, ‘They’re gone, all of them. Me da, Tom, me other brother Peter--’
     
    ‘ No! No! ’ The words were desperate and then the girl bent forward, folding her arms round her waist as she began to moan softly.
     
    ‘How far gone are you, lass?’ Nellie’s voice, in contrast to how she had spoken before, was quiet and sad-sounding.
     
    The words hung in the air. Daisy blinked, looking first at her grandmother and then at Margery who had frozen and was now sitting in silence with her head hanging down.
     
    A bairn? Tom had given this lass a bairn? He couldn’t have, not Tom. And then a separate part of her brain which seemed to be working outside the situation said, Why not Tom? He was a man, wasn’t he, and this thing she had glimpsed staring out of Alf’s eyes once or twice, this hungry urgent thing, could easily take over if two people loved each other. She could understand that now, since the day of the shipwreck.
     
    ‘Lass?’ Nellie’s voice was still quiet but there was a note to it which brought Margery’s head up with a little jerk, although it was still slightly bent as she answered, ‘Two . . . two months. I wasn’t sure before but now I am.’
     
    ‘Did he know? Tom?’
     
    ‘No. Like I said, I wasn’t sure until the last week when . . . when it didn’t happen again. And I’ve been feeling bad the last few days, and I was sick yesterday and then again this morning.’
     
    ‘I’m so sorry.’ Daisy reached out and grasped one of the girl’s fine thin hands in her own, and although Tom’s lass didn’t reply her other hand covered Daisy’s, gripping it hard as the tears slowly dripped down her cheeks.
     
    ‘We . . . it only happened the once, I promise. We didn’t mean to.’
     
    ‘Once is more than enough, as you’ve found,’ Nellie said tartly, moderating her voice when Daisy raised a reproachful face and shook her head to add, ‘But it’s done now, lass, an’ what will be, will be. What about yer mam an’ da? Have you told them?’
     
    The slight shoulders hunched. ‘I wanted to tell Tom first but he didn’t come last night, and then, when I was sick again this morning, my mam must have guessed something. She was waiting for me when I got home from work - I work for Mr Mallard, you know?’ Daisy and her grandmother nodded their heads. They knew Mallard’s corner shop in Whitburn which doubled as a grocer’s and draper’s. ‘She went on and on at me until I told her, and when my da got in . . .’ Margery’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘He went mad and . . . and he threw me out.’
     
    ‘Threw you out?’ Daisy was horrified.
     
    And now Margery raised her head to look into Daisy’s face as she nodded slowly, saying, ‘They . . . they said not to come back.’
     
    ‘Your mam an’ all?’
     
    ‘She . . . she pushed me out into the street again when I tried to get back in.’ Margery was sobbing loudly once more, and when she wailed, ‘Oh, Tom, Tom. I want Tom,’ Daisy and Nellie looked at each other helplessly.
     
    What on earth were they going to do? Daisy was still holding Margery’s hands in her own. Now her practical side came to the fore as she said, ‘Come on, come on, lass, you’ll be makin’ yourself ill. Look, you can stay here tonight an’ I’ll go an’ see your mam an’ da tomorrow, all right? I’ll explain about Tom an’ say he loved you an’ wanted to marry you--’
     
    ‘They know that, I said that, but when they found out he was a fisherman . . .’ Fresh sobs choked further words.
     
    Daisy straightened her back. So that was the way of it?